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REVIEWS, Page 79OPERAScore Another For Americans
By MICHAEL WALSH
TITLE: MCTEAGUE
COMPOSER: William Bolcom
LIBRETTISTS: Arnold Weinstein and Robert Altman
WHERE: Lyric Opera of Chicago
THE BOTTOM LINE: The latest successful home-grown opera is
a brash tale of turn-of-the-century passions.
These are rich times for American opera. After years of
prospecting in the wilderness of arid academic styles and
played-out compositional veins, composers may finally have hit
an operatic mother lode. Within the past year, the Metropolitan
Opera has staged two successful world premieres by Americans,
John Cori gliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and Philip Glass's
The Voyage. This month, through Nov. 24, Lyric Opera of Chicago
is striking pay dirt with William Bolcom's McTeague. Eureka!
Until now, Frank Norris' 1899 novel was best known as the
inspiration for Erich von Stroheim's 1924 silent epic Greed.
Bolcom has given the material a brash, distinctive voice. His
score evokes turn-of-the-century America in a slick, seamless
potpourri of retro modernism, long, loose-limbed melodies and
irresistible rhythmic invention.
In contrast to the cinematically luxurious Greed, the
libretto of McTeague -- by Bolcom's longtime collaborator Arnold
Weinstein and director Robert Altman -- relates the action in
spare, simple prose. McTeague (tenor Ben Heppner), a powerful
brute who has set up shop as an unlicensed dentist in San
Francisco, falls in love with his best friend Marcus Schouler's
girl, Trina (soprano Catherine Malfitano, in a marvelously
sensual performance). After Trina wins $5,000 in a lottery --
and McTeague's practice is ruined when the jealous Marcus
(baritone Timothy Nolen) reports him to the authorities -- the
relationship sinks slowly into a morass of miserliness and
sexual dysfunction. Driven nearly mad, McTeague kills his wife,
steals her money and sets out for Death Valley, grimly pursued
by Marcus: Wozzeck meets The Ballad of Baby Doe.
Altman, whose only previous operatic staging was a 1983
Rake's Progress at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, proves
to be an ideal directorial choice. Especially noteworthy is
Trina's erotic soliloquy as she lies in bed showered with her
gold pieces, a latter-day Danae. And surely the opening scene
of Act II, in which the maid Maria (mezzo Emily Golden) hymns
the joy of wealth while experiencing the joy of sex up against
a fence, is an operatic first.
History cautions against too quickly proclaiming a Golden
Age for native opera. The 1930s witnessed a false dawn when
Howard Hanson's Merry Mount and Deems Taylor's The King's
Henchman, among other worthy pieces, took the stage at the Met
only to disappear soon after. A few decades later, composers
such as Douglas Moore (Baby Doe), Robert Ward (The Crucible) and
Samuel Barber (Vanessa) made another attempt to establish
American opera, but their works faded as well.
The new generation may have better luck. Euro-centrism is
dying, and with it the reflexive Europhilia of audiences. The
new operas are eclectic, tuneful and frankly crowd pleasing.
Once again, new music is where the action, and the money, is.
Let the Europeans munch on the indigestible tone rows of Aribert
Reimann or the pretentious obscurity of Sir Michael Tippett.
Americans want something with a beat they can virtually dance
to. In McTeague, they have it.