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Sara Holdren:I was really compelled by the first act.
And I think were really primed to be reading something deeply sinister into all of that from the start.
:I agree, it opens like a jet taking off from an aircraft carrier: instantly airborne.
:The score even begins with this low buzz and timpani rumble that sounds like an engine revving up.
And speaking of engines the mezzo-soprano Emily DAngelo really gives the production a terrific one, doesnt she?
:Shes an operatic Maserati.
And Tesori supplies her with a relentless tour de force.
:And she doesnt let up for two whole acts.
She barely even gets offstage.
It made me wonder whether Tesori has spent a lot of time withRichard StrausssElektra.
:She also has a great physicality for Jess, a chest-up toughness and just enough swagger.
Especially as the story becomes more internal and she becomes more unstable in the second act.
How do you feel about that jump in scale?
:Its true Im never not struck by how massive it is.
I was disappointed by that.
Then she complains a lot until she does something self-sacrificing and out of bounds.
:A nice way of saying Thats wrong!
S.H.:Ha!
:What do you make of Jesss trajectory from ace to insubordinate inmate?
It all seems very essentialist.
:Yes, I agree that the second act is much less focused.
That didnt end up happening.
It tried, but it lost too much of its clarity and drive to really bring the devastation home.
:I think thats partly a dramatic problem and partly a musical one.
:Say more about the music.
:There are a lot of musical touchstones, so many they fly by like a spray of gravel.
Baroque brass fanfares, filtered through 19th century symphonic grandiosity.
(And the loose-limbed, velvet-voiced tenor Ben Bliss gets the open-range style just right.)
Clanging Stravinsky-ish chords and skittering muted trumpets.
:But Williams is fantastic
J.D.
:Oh, absolutely!
Hes a master synthesist, and Tesori is no slouch.
I found her musical characterization of Jess convincing as far as it went.
But in the long run, the relationship between the score and the story becomes increasingly diffuse.
Thats one reason the second act drags.
:I think youre right and a related reason has to do with the character Ellie Dehn is singing.
War with all the benefits of home, goes the nauseating refrain but really, its the opposite.
Jesss self splits because what shes actually experiencing is home with all the brutalities of war.
Theres such a lot of potential in this idea, but that potential is mostly wasted.
:Is she the product of a dissociative episode?
:Right, is she Gollum or Smeagol or what?
I think this all goes back to some ineffectual ambiguities in Brants original play.
:The technology of killing lays bare the ethics of killing.
S.H.:Yes.
Theres no more hiding behind concepts like glory and honor and camaraderie, or the romanticism of flight.
When Brant wrote the play, drone warfare was brand new.
There are stories about audiences Googling after they saw the show to find out if drones were actually real.
Now, we can see what our tax dollars are doing every day, and its all death.
:I wonder if theyve changed again.
In fact, in the opera we see the ability to limit civilian casualties.
The climactic moment undercuts itself, weakening the drama of the finale.
I admit Imsomuch more interested in the latter.
:We havent talked much about the visual aspect of the production.
Its that clarity that starts to addle her mind.
We could more accurately see each object she was seeing.
Las Vegas by Gerhard Richter.
:Thats a great description.
And of course theres a very meaningful exception to all that fuzziness.
It doesnt look real.
But not only is it real, itsold techat this point.
I found that pretty terrifying.
:Because by the shows final movement, things have started to feel contrived.
But right now, both the fact and the details of it feel unearned and implausible.
:I was having the sameCome on!thoughts.
Which I absolutely shouldnt have been having in the final seconds of the show.
