This is my fiftieth opera from the 2010s, meaning I've seen significantly more operas from that decade than any other. That's kind of weird. Second is the 1900s, with thirty-one.
It's based on a Stephen King novel. Does that sound weird? Well, there's at least one other. But either way, I haven't read the book! I've never read a Stephen King novel, in fact. Is that weird--possibly weird in the same sense that me never having seen a James Bond movie is weird? Maybe! Who cares?!? Hell, if you make a James Bond opera, I'll check it out for sure. Apparently Quantum of Solace features some Tosca in the background, so baby steps, I guess.
Well, this isn't horror, at least not of the inhuman, cosmic type. In the narrative's present, 1992, in King's go-to state of Maine, the sixty-five-year-old Dolores is accused of murdering Vera Donovan, a rich woman whose longtime caretaker she was. We then flash back to the early nineteen-sixties: her bad husband, Joe, is sexually molesting their daughter Selma. Having had enough of this, she uses the cover of a solar eclipse to murder him. She's suspected but not convicted of the murder, for reasons that I assume are more apparent in the book. In the present, we learn that Vera actually died by falling down the stairs in what may or may not have been a suicide. Dolores is under extra-suspicion of murder because Vera left her her entire fortune, but Selma--now a lawyer in Boston--comes to defend her, and she probably would've gotten off in any case because she refuses to accept the inheritance; she immediately gives it all away. But Selma is still kind of mad at her mother in spite of everything for the murder of her father and takes off.
Obviously, a lot has to be cut to make a novel into an opera: browsing the wikipedia page, I see that Dolores also has two sons in the original story. Also--this is just weird--in the book, instead of a lawyer in Boston, she's a journalist in New York. You can see how the lawyer thing makes sense; it gives her a reason to come home and also journalist is a more marginal job today than it was when the book was published. But why switch cities like that? Unclear.
But the real issue I have is that the book ends with an implied near-future reconciliation between mother and daughter, whereas the opera...does not. What's that about? You're fundamentally altering the story for no apparent reason, and the new way seems much less satisfying.
Aside from that, however, I enjoyed the opera! It's the third Picker i've seen, after Fantastic Mr. Fox and An American Tragedy, and the music is basically of a piece with them, with some strong vocal moments. We've got this version to watch. Strong cast, especially the mezzo-soprano Lisa Chavez in the title role. She really acts the heck out of it. The fact that none of the singers are notably famous shows how much talent there is in the world of Classical music.
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