Per Wikipedia, Thomson "was instrumental in the development of the 'American sound' in classical music." How did I even hear about him, though? I think it was probably just sifting through the horizontal list that appears at the top of the page after a google search for "American operas," but that was some time ago. How come there's virtually no pre-twentieth-century American opera, or at least any that's remembered enough to appear in searches? It is a mystery!
This is about Susan B. Anthony. More or less. It's kind of jumbled, and there's a bewildering assortment of other characters, real and fictional, the former category including John Adams, Anthony Comstock, Daniel Webster, and Ulysses S Grant. It's basically her struggle for women's suffrage. What else would it be?
You can see that I'm having trouble summarizing it, but the libretto really IS willfully obscure. It's by Gertrude Stein, whom he had met when they were both living in Paris in the twenties, and...you couldn't call it hermetic poetry, exactly, but it definitely feels like it's written by a person who also wrote hermetic poetry, if you get me. I did not find it dramatically satisfying.
And this is a shame, because Thomson's music is great; you can definitely recognize that "American sound," even if you struggle to define it. A strong country-folk aesthetic, with melodies bubbling to the surface that you'd swear are half-forgotten folk songs. I would like to hear a Thomson opera with a libretto by...someone else.
Still, it's good that this is available to see. There's a production from earlier this year--before everything went to Hell--from the Met, which confusingly is short for Metropolitan Museum of Art in this case--apparently, they put on shows on occasion. It's performed in the museum, with a small audience of presumably donors. It's pretty good!
You'll recall that Our Hero President, well-known as a bold feminist icon, recently pardoned Susan B. Anthony for having voted illegally. Pretty sure nobody ever thought about that even a tiny bit or considered it some kind of great, lingering, social injustice--it's not even featured as a plot point in this piece--but WHATEVER.
No comments:
Post a Comment