Intimate and timely
“As One” breaks the mold of traditional opera
“As One” is the hottest title in opera right now, at least among the titles written in the last 100 years. The musical tale of a transgender woman’s personal evolution is somehow right on time — an accomplished bit of art-making, with considerable entertainment value, that thrusts itself smack into the current political and social discourse.
It’s in Denver this week week. Pittsburgh last. Seattle produced it in November and folks in New Orleans and Los Angeles get to hear it this spring. The chamber piece, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in late 2014, has a rare vitality in a business where new works — including the good ones — have to fight for even a second show.
Opera companies love it. One reason is that it’s relatively inexpensive to present: no chorus, orchestra or big sets. Composer Laura Kaminsky’s creation has just two singers, a string quartet and a couple of temporary screens that show films in the background.
But that’s why audiences seem to like it, too. It’s intimate. All the complaints so frequently lodged against the art form — that it can be distant, formal and out-of-touch, aren’t a factor for “As One.” Nor is length; it clocks in at just 75 minutes.
“With ‘As One,’ the singers aren’t miles away,” said Mark Campbell, the Pulitzer Prizewinning writer who co-authored the libretto. “And that makes the emotions a little truer.”
The opera’s smallness comes from its story, which has the work’s only character, Hannah, recounting the life episodes that marked her gender progression. Some are sad, other quite funny. But they’re all deeply personal.
The part is sung in tandem by a male baritone and a female mezzosoprano. Much of the time they are on stage performing together.
The tale is based, loosely, on the life of filmmaker Kimberly Reed, who first captured her own journey in the 2008 documentary “Prodigal Sons.” She partnered on the libretto for the opera and made the films that open up the scenery.
As a composer, Kaminsky has written for chorus, orchestra and solo piano, but said she chose a string quartet early on for her first opera. Similar to the protagonist in the story, string quartets use multiple voices of the same instrument, and trade off roles, in an attempt to emerge “as one” as an ensemble.
Her score proceeds at a rapid pace, which keeps the narrative moving along, but is peppered with — as The New York Times noted at the premiere — “deliberately ugly moments of slips and slides.”
That seems appropriate for a work that details the challenges — including the character assaults and physical violence — that trans people often face.
“Demonstrating the true horrors transgender people are put through daily” keeps the piece rooted in reality, Campbell believes, and prevents it from being seen as political propaganda on behalf of trans rights — a role the opera’s creators downplay in interviews.
“When I was first approached to help write this, the first thing I said was that it has to be a human story,” said Campbell. “It has to be specific to a real character.”
That said, there is no separating the work from the contentious dialogue surrounding transgender issues that plays out in the media almost daily. It heated up just days ago when President Donald Trump reversed an existing executive order that allowed trans students at schools to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity. He essentially legalized discrimination.
“As One” makes the potential targets of that discrimination visceral and familiar.
No one involved in the production is unhappy about that — they carry the pro-trans mantle with obvious pride — but they hope it taps into something deeper about personal identity and the transformation into adulthood that everyone goes through as they break from the family nest and assert their individuality. Campbell describes it as “that need to kill that other person inside before we can move forward.”
It’s a brutal metaphor, but crucial to the future of “As One” as a piece of opera. Topical can sell tickets, but it also threatens to make the effort so much of its time that it will appear dated in a decade. Opera is not a shortterm art form; true success demands that people will still want to hear a work a century on, like they continue to clamor for Puccini or Verdi.
To that end, Kaminsky says, “on a certain level, we hope the universal truth of it will always remain current.”
For Opera Colorado, the production comes with some share of risk. For 25 years, the company has exclusively presented large works in big venues. It is known as a warhorse operation, for churning out standard versions of “Madama Butterfly” and “Carmen” at the 2,200-seat Ellie Caulkins Opera House downtown.
This production takes place in the Performing Arts Complex at Pinnacle Charter School, which is one-fourth the size and located in North Denver. Its audience may be challenged, not just by the subject matter, but also by the location.
But the company, mirroring opera operations across the country, is entering a new phase, determined to present works on “relevant, socially exciting, interesting subject matter,” as general director Greg Carpenter describes it. It has a five-year plan of programming and outreach to mix old material with recent and to shake up both the places it performs in and the people it performs for.
“As One,” rooted physically and symbolically in transformation, seems the right vehicle to drive the change.
“This is a piece that’s so beyond what it looks like on the surface,” said Carpenter.