Séance on a Wet Afternoon - New Production at NYC Opera (plot spoiler)

I've spent several days mulling over what to say about Stephen Schwartz's opera, "Séance on a Wet Afternoon."  I attended the Saturday matinee performance on April 23 at the New York City Opera.  Schwartz is credited with both music and libretto for this full-length, two act opera, based on a novel by Mark McShane (1961) and a screenplay by Brian Forbes (1964).  One wants to be kind in talking about new works mounted with great effort and expense by a company that is struggling financially.  But with all the good will in the world, I have to say that this was a disappointment, despite generally good performances by most of the musicians and a terrific job by the director, set and lighting designers, costumers, et al.

The problem is in the opera itself, I think.  I just found the music to be generally undistinguished, and surprisingly so given the composer's significant accomplishments in musical theater (Godspell, Pippin, Wicked).  What occurs to me is that when somebody tries to "cross over" from that world into opera, they tend to become unduly concerned about a perceived need to shed the "listener-friendly" idiom of Broadway in order to enter the "serious" world of opera, and their music becomes abstract and tuneless.  Schwartz knows how to write a good tune -- indeed, some bits in the second act really verged on this -- but he seems to have strived to avoid doing so in order to be writing modern opera.  Or maybe it was totally subconscious on his part.  But the result is completely unmemorable, although I found the second act slightly better than the first in this regard.

Contributing to this feeling, unfortunately, were the exceptions to my general praise for the performers, which focus on the two lead roles, Myra and Bill Foster.  I thought Lauren Flanigan's acting histrionics were fine, but her higher-flying notes seemed quite out of control to me on Saturday, wandering into strange tonal zones.  No matter how much Schwartz was straining to be modern, I doubt that he was intending to experiment with quartertones.  And Kim Josephson as Mr. Foster sounded to me frequently and stubbornly flat, especially in the higher-ranging portions of his part.  Perhaps the part is just written a shade too high for an operatic baritone, but he seemed to be straining at high notes and all too often falling just below the pitch. 

By contrast, I thought Jane Shaulis as Mrs. Wintry, mother of the abducted child, was superb, and her big aria in Act II one of the few moments that really worked well for me, musically.  The other supporting players came through at a high level, and the City Opera Orchestra conducted by George Manahan was definitely aces in this difficult, unfamiliar music.

On another point, I parted company with my opera-going companion, who generally agreed with my musical criticisms.  As he saw the way the wind was blowing, plot-wise, he became more and more uncomfortable, until finally during the second act he left the theater briefly to avoid seeing Myra murder young Adriana.   To my friend, depicting the murder of an innocent young kidnap victim on the stage was crossing a line, just not appropriate.  I kept telling him "it's just an opera, people are always doing outrageous stuff in opera," but he insisted that a line had been crossed.  At least, he insisted,in the publicity for this show there should have been some intimation or warning that infanticide was part of the action to be depicted, so he could make a decision to avoid it.  Having no acquaintance with the novel or the film, and being deprived -- as we were, unusually, deprived in the program book -- of an actual plot summary, he wasn't given this choice.

This is a problem that disappears as an opera ages, of course, since the plot becomes common knowledge.  I'm assuming they omitted a detailed plot summary (of the type that always appears in City Opera program books) precisely to preserve the surprise and shock value of the plot, but in this case at least one audience member thought they really went too far.  While I don't necessarily agree, I can understand his point.