One-Act Opera Three-Pack

That's what this post is.  This paragraph only exists so I can put the main body of text below the jump; otherwise, I'd have the first of these mini-reviews above it and the rest below and it would be awkward, unlike my explaining my strategy here, which is just about the smoothest thing you have ever seen.

Dominick Argento, Postcard from Morocco (1971)

This takes place in a train station in Morocco as people wait for their train, in the early twentieth century. I don't want to brag, but I lived in Morocco for a while, and during that time I did indeed spend some time in train stations. Admittedly, it wasn't the early twentieth century, but I still think this lends me a certain amount of expertise. Supposedly, this is based to some degree on Robert Lewis Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verses, which doesn't exactly have a plot, so neither does this. Nothing really happens here: people wait for their train, talk about their plans, and refuse to reveal the contents of their luggage to each other (symbolism! In this production at least, they're all at the end revealed to contain nothing but sand). I might have wanted more of a plot, but it's quite musically interesting, moving from straightforward romantic stuff to kind of jazzy sounds, with a kind of appropriate exoticism to it. I dug it, though this production, or at least the way it's shot, isn't ideal; it's from a fixed location with no close-ups, so you don't have much of a sense of what the characters look like. There are supertitles above the stage, but they're hard to read, and inevitably the singing can be hard to follow. Still liked it, but would like to see it in more ideal circumstances. It's still sometimes performed, I think, but there's no other video that I could find.

Tobias Picker, Fantastic Mr. Fox (1998)

Yes! It's an opera based on the Roald Dahl novel, which I loved when I was a child. I mean, I'm not trying to imply that now I hate it. Just that I haven't read it in years. But I think of it fondly. You might imagine that an opera based on it would be something of a novelty, but Picker has at least a certain amount of cachet: his American Tragedy, based on the Dreiser novel, had its world debut at the Met (and apparently just wasn't videorecorded, JEEZ, people, this was 2005, what the hell?). Not that the Met is necessarily a guarantee of quality (I still get annoyed when I think about Ghosts of Versailles), but it's at least worth considering. Surely. This is actually a three-act opera, but it's only seventy-some minutes, so it seems more like a one-acter, so I'm counting it as one, you can't stop me. Mr. Fox lives with his wife and four children, but there are three mean farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, who don't like the foxes stealing their livestock and aim to stop them. So they attack the foxes' lair with earth-burrowing tools, and things seem bad, but the foxes escape and with other burrowing animals, they dig their way into the farmers' barns so they can continue to eat their birds and also drink their hard cider. Unusual detail for a children's book, that last, but there you go! Opera strays significantly from the book in some regards: there's this whole thing with a hedgehog who's sad because she's single and then she falls in love with a porcupine (what, you think they're the same just because they both have spikes? RACIST). Also, interestingly enough, the Earth-moving machines are made into singing roles. It's all goofy and all good fun; I liked it. Apparently Gerald Finley created the role of Mr. Fox. That would have been cool to see.

Howard Moody, Push (2019)

This one WAS up on Monnaie de Munt's website and youtube page, but it seems to be down now. Gotta be quick if you don't want to miss these things sometimes. It's a story about a child--a real guy, named Simon Gronowski--who survived the Holocaust when his mother pushed him off the train that was headed for Auschwitz. The libretto is a mixture of French and English, for whatever reason, and the whole thing...I mean, if you say a piece of art about the Holocaust is "uplifting," what you generally mean is that it's mendacious schmaltz, and yet I feel like this more or less escapes that. It really is about humanity, and a heartfelt plea for love and understanding of a sort that we really badly need. The "push" is not just Gronowski being pushed off the train, but a push into what we can only hope is a better future. There is a disconcerting cohort of actual fucking nazis who are opera fans (more on that in the near future), so an opera like this is very welcome. And Moody's music--I'd never even heard of him before this, but there are a few more of his works on the Monnaie de Munt site right now, so expect more of him in the future--is inspiring, especially his choruses.