A special eight-page section focusing on recent recordings from the US and Canada
Cerrone In a Grove John Taylor Ward bass-bar ..................................................... ................................. Woodcutter/Outlaw (Luther Harlow) Chuanyuan Liu counterten .................... Priest/Medium Andrew Turner ten ...................................................................... ................................. Policeman/Settler (Ambrose Raines) Lindsay Kesselman sop ........................................................... .......................... Mother/Missing Woman (Leona Raines) Metropolis Ensemble / Andrew Cyr In a Circle (ICR028 • 52’) Includes synopsis and libretto
‘Remembrance’s flawed roughness’ is how Christopher Cerrone describes
the narrative ambiguity threaded through this hour-long chamber opera. Based on Ryu¯nosuke Akutagawa’s short story from 1922 (better known from another work it inspired, Akira Kurosawa’s groundbreaking 1950 film Rashomon), In a Grove in fact makes the act of narrating – and, with it, the alternately revelatory and deceptive work of memory – the main event.
The premiere staged by Pittsburgh Opera in 2022, which earned much acclaim, made effective use of moody visuals. (It can be viewed on YouTube.) But savvily deployed studio techniques – overdubbing, spatial differentiation and the like – ensure that this audio-only encounter with Cerrone’s spare but tellingly detailed score is an engrossing and complete experience, at times reminiscent of radio drama.
Stephanie Fleischmann’s libretto transfers the story from its originally ancient Japanese setting to a ghost forest in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest a century ago (the period when Akutagawa wrote his story). Four characters offer testimony after a body has been found in a remote grove. Three eyewitnesses to the actual slaying then offer contradictory confessions in which each claims responsibility for the death of this young man, Ambrose Raines: the Outlaw, Luther Harlow; the dead man’s widow, Leona; and Ambrose Raines himself, who uses
a medium to give his version, from beyond, of what happened. Fleischmann emphasises the detective story/psychological thriller aspect of this framework by having the opera culminate with Ambrose’s disclosure of the secret he has taken with him to the grave.
Cerrone evokes the fragility of memory from the outset: the opening Prelude, an inchoate layer of electronic fog, suggests the erasure of the forest’s own past through wildfire and lingering smoke. The Metropolis Ensemble articulate his economical writing for nine players with vivid nuance; the composer himself controls the electronic part, which textures the soundscape and occasionally distorts the voices.
Eight roles are distributed among four singers. Their lines combine minimalist traits – insistently recurring motifs underscore the obsessive patterns of traumatic memory – with a kind of early music spareness: a greater distance from verismo would be hard to imagine. John Taylor Ward convincingly distinguishes between the matter-of-fact Woodcutter and the nihilist Luther; soprano Lindsay Kesselman delivers memorable portrayals of Leona and her angst-stricken mother. Cerrone’s vocal characterisation is most striking in the final scene’s duet between countertenor Chuanyuan Liu as the medium and tenor Andrew Turner, poignantly lyrical as the deceased Ambrose, as their voices join in two simultaneous versions of the same character. But in the opera’s dynamics, revelation denies resolution. Thomas May
Heap Dillinger: An American Oratorio Caryn Alexis Crozier sop Leigh Usilton contr George Milosh ten Juwan Johnson bar choir and ensemble / Kym Scott Navona (NV6525 • 53’)
John Dillinger, the American gangster once proclaimed ‘Public Enemy No 1’,
is as infamous as Bonnie and Clyde. His brief, inglorious career – like theirs – lasted only a few years and ended with his being shot in the back by J Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation in July 1934; he was 31. Dillinger’s defiance of the police made him something of a folk hero; attempts have been made to set his career in the context of his time and upbringing, not unlike the revisionism that has taken place with the career of the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly.
Dillinger was no Ned Kelly or Robin Hood, however, and Matthew Heap’s ‘American oratorio’, composed in 2012, does not try to make him one. Rather, it focuses on the last few days of Dillinger’s life, lying low in Chicago and trying to build a relationship with Polly Hamilton. The scenario is built around Dillinger’s betrayal by Ana Cumpa˘nas, – a Chicago madam for whom Polly worked – to Hoover after confrontations with Dillinger, who wanted Polly to cease working for Ana, and Hoover, who threatened to deport her. The work is structured as a concert opera, not unlike Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, although the works are wholly unalike. Dillinger is a chamber piece, with four vocal soloists, three of whom double in the eight-voice choir that drives the action forwards, accompanied by a chamber ensemble of 10 players.
George Milosh’s portrayal of Dillinger himself is nuanced, ardent and caring in his alter ego of Jimmy Lawrence, an office worker, menacing in his interactions with Ana. Leigh Usilton rather steals the show as the doubledealing brothel-keeper ‘in the red dress’. Caryn Alexis Crozier does her best as Polly but the role offers little of Ana’s scope, and her early exchanges with ‘Jimmy’ border on the banal. Juwan Johnson provides a fine turn as Hoover, scheming to make the deal that will seal Dillinger’s fate. Kym Scott directs the choir and ensemble with suitable urgency, building from the work’s uncertain start to the tense denouement, but the opera desperately needs a memorable tune; the singular scoring is its most notable feature.
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GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2023 I