HGO shines ‘Light’ on Rothko Chapel
Mark Rothko knew well the unconventional nature of truth. Negative space can be positive. Empty rooms can hold much more than air. And secular spaces can carry the voice of God.
If his abstract expressionism was seen as a sideways approach to the world he saw around him, then it was only because there was no other way. The path to anything sublime, he felt, could never be straightforward.
The French-American art collector and philanthropist Dominique de Menil understood this notion when she sought to build a home for Rothko’s art. She wanted the Rothko Chapel to be, like his paintings, an affirmative statement made through negative space. She wanted a place where visitors could escape not just the pretension and politics of the art industry but also the civil unrest of the 1960s, the institution of religion and any kind of transactional expectation one might have for a gallery or church. She wanted, in short, a blank check for the soul.
“Some Light Emerges,” the new opera commissioned by Houston Grand Opera through its “community collaboration” initiative and presented last week, dives right into Rothko and de Menil’s shared spiritual vision with plaintive, purposefully meandering music by Laura Kaminsky and an audacious libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed. The 75-minute chamber piece just might be the best articulation of the Rothko Chapel’s purpose in modern times.
The opera skips from era to era, beginning from de Menil’s Rothko conception in 1964 to miniportraits of modern-day visitors. Its story offers some intriguing tidbits on the process behind building the chapel, not to mention de Menil’s witty, yet enlightened worldview based on the text of real speeches.
But the opera shines most brightly through its motley assemblage of visitors and the reasons they have for seeking sanctuary. What could have been a cheesy, surface-level pastiche — the kind of phony humanity you see in an Exxon or General Mills ad, diverse smiling employees and all — instead declares the most generous reading of the Rothko Chapel, which is that, not unlike the Statue of Liberty, it’s nothing short of a pronunciation of American ideals.
The chapel, we see through these voices, is and was always meant to be a home for the tired, the poor and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
For instance, Tom, a construction worker, seeks sanctuary in the chapel from Houston’s summer heat. He doesn’t realize Rothko’s paintings, which at first glance are simply large, dark rectangles, are art. But then he sees something more. “Reminds me of the hills outside Round Top,” he says. “The night sky. Bluebonnets, Caroline’s eyes … didn’t realize I miss home so much.” And thus the opera proclaims its first notion of the chapel — that it is democratic and relatable.
Kaminsky’s score flutters in and out of our attention. Because the stories were so diverse, each scene embodied a distinct personality, yet contained the common strand of chamber instrumentation divorced from a static key or tempo. Tom’s bluecollar joviality was backed by a nod to Rodgers and Hammerstein — happy, major chords — while moments of uncertainly were underscored with the unsettling circularity of Stephen Sondheim.
Not to say the style of music was theatrical, even if its weakest moments were also the most obviously narrative — when the music failed to live up to the subtle, sideways approach of the opera and the Rothko Chapel.
How joyous, then, it was to hear soprano Yelena Dyachek sing, as de Menil, the revelations of a visionary art patron. De Menil explains to us that the chapel must transcend the limitations of both religion and art and offer, instead, something sacred. “To go beyond,” she says.
The opera takes a while to get there. But it is not languid. Rather, it demands our patience. After the final note, of a low cello lingering in the darkness, several audience members shuffled out of the room, as if they could not lend the night any more patience. One man, by contrast, brought his hands to his face, as if to cry, as if he had just had a religious experience.
Rothko’s paintings stand in our minds, rising up toward the skylight, seemingly neutral and devoid of poetry, yet when you see it in the right light it begins to call to your heart. Truths unfold through contradiction. Abstract art becomes anything but. Out of the silence, memory speaks. Out of the murk of Rothko’s brown-purple paint, what de Menil calls “windows that open into night,” some light emerges.