Excellence goes only so far in ‘Eurydice’
“She’s not the best singer in the world.” This is one of the few lines that describes the title character of Sarah Ruhl’s poetic and emotionally rich 2003 play “Eurydice,” the basis for a recent opera by Matthew Aucoin. For reasons you may be able to intuit, this direction and the passage in which it appears were not noticeably incorporated into the opera, which marked its local premiere on Friday, complete with a new arrangement for small orchestra cocommissioned by Boston Lyric Opera and Opera Grand Rapids.
With the original “Eurydice,” which included a full orchestra and was commissioned by the bicoastal powers of Los Angeles Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, the Medfield-raised Aucoin (son of Globe theater critic Don Aucoin) seized one of the few guaranteed brass rings for a young composer. What’s more, the new chamber orchestra commission allows it to be put on by opera companies with smaller budgets, so the groundwork is being laid for its longevity.
Altogether, it’s telling evidence that a new opera’s longevity has less to do with how excellent it may be and more to do with institutional support, which “Eurydice” has in abundance. BLO’s performance was excellent, as was its production, but alas, “Eurydice” is not an excellent opera.
It’s not a bad one, for the record. However, when it fails, it doesn’t fail interestingly; it meanders, it drags, and it makes listeners wonder for most of its 2½ hours if they’re just not smart enough to get it.
Ruhl’s play, and the subsequent opera, adapts the well-traveled myth that has been synonymous with music theater since time immemorial. Takes on the myth by Jacopo Peri and Claudio Monteverdi are among the earliest surviving operas, and it’s been reimagined over again at least a few times per century since then — see: “Hadestown,” the Tony-winning musical with a book that gives its mythological characters enough personality to make the audience care what happens to them.
In her play, Ruhl lays the groundwork for her childlike Orpheus, Eurydice, and company to have personalities as well, but the actors need to fill in the blanks, and Aucoin’s music, though always competent and occasionally exquisite, didn’t substitute for that. It’s slightly harder to believe that Eurydice a). isn’t the best singer and b). is alienated by Orpheus’s constant devotion to his music, when she’s singing all the time as well. Operas need singing actors, but this play might need actors first. As spoken dialogue it zings, as a libretto it sags.
But back to that exquisite music. The soundscape of “Eurydice” is largely tonal, often playful. Unlike in most operatic adaptations of the myth, Eurydice has plenty to sing, and Aucoin both knows how to write for voice and doesn’t treat his singers as vocal effect machines. As delivered by BLO newcomer Sydney Mancasola, a soprano with a sublime and expressive instrument, Eurydice’s arias were among the most dramatically effective and emotionally affecting segments of the evening.
Orpheus in this opera is portrayed by two singers, with a baritone (Elliot Madore, BLO debut, Orpheus as a goofy golden retriever, voice ample and earthy) as the man himself and a countertenor (Nicholas Kelliher, also a BLO debut, ghostly) as his “double,” perhaps the artistic muse that keeps drawing his attention from Eurydice. In Act I before Eurydice’s death, Kelliher sang from offstage when duetting with Madore, a neat staging trick that would have been neater if he hadn’t been almost inaudible. The Huntington is not an acoustically hospitable venue for much besides center stage park-and-bark singing, alas.
In addition to bringing a tenderly nuanced baritone voice to the role of Eurydice’s father, Mark S. Doss was the strongest actor of the cast, and provided a poignant anchor for all scenes in which he appeared. The cast was rounded out by high-flying tenor David Portillo, who brought both high notes and stage presence to the verdant-bearded, greedy Hades in his BLO debut (wig/makeup designer Liz Printz held nothing back with him either); and the trio of soprano Maggie Finnegan, mezzo Alexis Peart, and tenor Neal Ferreira as the underworld’s stones, who serve as both Greek chorus and comic-relief trio. Aucoin himself conducted the compact pit orchestra, and in doing so made a strong case that the score doesn’t need a large ensemble; it simply needs an attentive and agile one.
The production design was superb as well. Douglas Fitch, also a BLO newcomer, clearly took to heart Ruhl’s directive that the script should be a “playground for designers,” designing both sets and costumes in addition to stage directing the action. The bi-leveled set was unfussy and effective, with a catwalk that converted to a stairway as needed and a door that doubled as the entrance to the wedding hall in Act I and the entrance to the underworld subsequently. The stones were encumbered with bulky, lumpy gray bodysuits spackled with multicolored moss and glitter, contrasting with Eurydice’s unfussy sunset hues and Hades’s outlandish drag-royalty ensembles. One tip before the next performance: Turn down the brightness of those red flashlights on Hades’s goggles in the Act II finale, lest your audience be seeing spots as intermission begins.
For all the impressive moments visual and musical, however, “Eurydice” felt strangely hollow, occasionally hinting at a larger truth but rarely holding it up to the light. To quote “Hadestown”: It’s a sad song, but they’re going to sing it anyway.