Whose Town?

Can a simple story, deliberately lacking in operatic gestures, make a good play? Thornton Wilder's 1938 Our Town certainly did. It was a subtle, laid-back, and whimsical account of small-town America, more of an archetypal abstraction than practical reality. But can the same slow-moving, relaxed material be made into an opera, a genre whose essence is tension, conflict, and high emotions? Wilder, who had said that theater should reflect the reality that "our hope, our despair are in the mind — not in things, not in 'scenery,' " was so strongly opposed to the idea that he turned down Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland, among others. But now, three decades after the writer's death, and with the permission of his estate, Ned Rorem turned Wilder's play into an opera. On Saturday, less than a year after the first performances of the musical Our Town, Walnut Creek's Festival Opera presented its West Coast premiere.

The population of Grover's Corners filled the stage of the Hofmann Theater. The state manager (Richard Byrne) introduced Dr. Gibbs (Kirk Eichelberger) and Mrs. Gibbs (Patrice Houston), who proudly watched their son, George (Thomas Glenn), court Emily Webb (Marnie Breckenridge). And life moved inexorably forward, and onward to the town cemetery at the conclusion, as the dead kept an eye on the survivors. Festival Opera deserves credit for the adventure. The cast features some major talent from the Bay Area. Under Michael Morgan's direction, the small orchestra played impressively, and Beth Greenberg's staging worked well. But how was the opera?

Different Format, Something Missing

It's unwise, even impossible, to give Rorem's work a thumbs up or down. The experience of Our Town comes in layers. From the beginning, the music is striking: Ivesian "American dissonance" cradles some exquisitely beautiful (mostly orchestral) passages, in spite of a not-ready-for-prime-time chorus. Byrne's clear narration, and the principals' fine diction, make supertitles unnecessary. Rorem, with a lifetime of songwriting behind him, provides vocal lines that always lead the way, even through occasionally thick orchestral structures. The first act ("Daily Life"), of introductions, is closest to the spirit of the play, and with its rich musical material, it is the best part of the opera. The next act ("Marriage and Love"), deals with the wedding of George and Emily. It's too talky, with recitative following Sprechstimme. The final act ("Death") takes place in the town cemetery and follows Emily's visit to her family left behind. It is uniformly heavy, operatically tragic, and quite without Wilder's light touch in making the point about "gather your roses while you may," hitting you over the head instead with a virtual "Carpe diem" in fortissimo. It is worth noting that Wilder changed Emily's death to a dream scene in the 1940 film version for which he wrote the script, with William Holden and Martha Scott performing as George and Emily. And the film's score came from Copland, denied as he was the chance to write the opera. It is music that some thought evoked the essence of the story, with the music perfectly fitting the play.

Although Act 3 has the opera's longest sustained aria — Emily's in Breckenridge's soaring, crystalline delivery — the best of Our Town is delivered in the first hour. The rest doesn't invoke Wilder's spirit as well, nor does it develop the music further. And yet, even so, Eichelberger's broad, powerful bass, Glenn's clear, appealing tenor, Breckenridge's consistently flawless delivery, Houston's outsize mezzo — and all the principals' excellent stage presence — made the entire evening worthwhile. On the other hand, if you are a fan of Wilder's play, the opera will not enrich the work, only offer a different format that obscures something essential in the original. Chamber music is at times orchestrated, occasionally with success, but "more" is not "better." Chances are if you first encounter the opera, then the play, the latter will be a revelation in its powerful simplicity, without musical distractions.