Opera San Jose Sails Into the Big Time

Starbuck (Justin Ryan) and Queequeg (Ashraf Sewailam) leading the troops.
All photos by Pat Kirk.

Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick

February 10, 2019

An opera is the best thing that could have happened to Melville’s overwritten, sprawling mess of a book. Given the time-crunch offered by sung dialogue, librettist Gene Scheer was free to remove all the boring mariner digressions and get to the shining central tale, digging a pearl out of a bed of dull oysters. The story still philosophizes too much, sometimes seeming like a three-hour psychological profile of Ahab, but I note that most of these discussions are at least interrupted by a pivotal plot turn.

Jake Heggie, meanwhile, continues his quest to save modern opera from itself. His score possesses a propulsive, tidal quality, reminiscent of film soundtracks in its illustrative qualities, but he’s crafty enough to break it up with quiet interludes (dast I say “set pieces”?) and topdeck celebrations that echo traditional shanties and drinking songs.

Richard Cox as Ahab.

Heggie’s match of vocal character to role character is masterful, and for the most part the OSJ cast is up to the challenge. Richard Cox doesn’t carry the necessary power one associates with Ahab, but his spinto tenor has a certain electric edge suitable for Ahab’s many flights, and he has a ten-mile stare that has madness written all over it.

His friendly nemesis, Starbuck, sings in reasoned passages, trying to coax his captain into appropriate behavior, and Justin Ryan’s well-tempered baritone is just right. Noah Stewart’s soaring lyric tenor is perfect for Greenhorn’s wide-eyed wonder, answered by the friendly but gruff bass-baritone of Ashraf Sewailam as his companion Queequeg. Jasmine Habersham’s limitless soprano gives the cabin boy Pip an affable playfulness and, after his near-drowning, a psychic edginess.

The highlights are many. Trevor Neal takes his regal baritone to the theater’s balcony, which provides a good mimicry of Captain Gardiner’s ship pulling up along the Pequod. Tenor Mason Gates and baritone Eugene Brancoveanu make high-energy ringleaders for the chorus, which, equipped with genuine lead voices like Alex Boyer and Babatunde Akinboboye, fills the California Theatre with more sound than it’s ever had. I also enjoyed the inclusion of four dancers – Ty Danzl, Joshua Jung, Emmet Rodriguez and Anthony Shtov – who took great pains to seem more like sailors who were just really coordinated. For the marshalling of these scenes alone, stage director Kristine McIntyre deserves a medal.

Noah Stewart as Greenhorn.

Stewart and Sewailam do a superb job with the crow’s nest friendship duet, an example of Heggie’s willingness to write unabashedly beautiful music. The libretto goes a long way to sell this friendship as the core of the story, but I would disagree. The core is Ahab vs. Starbuck, an ongoing battle between obsession and practicality that nearly leads to the mate’s execution (a breathlessly suspenseful moment). In a way, this is an operatic debate that goes back to Puccini (follow the love) and Verdi (follow the power). This time, I’m with Verdi.

Ryan shines in his subsequent Hamlet-like monologue on his chances of ever seeing Nantucket again. Stewart’s star turn is Greenhorn’s realization of life’s bitter truths, “All is vanity!” Cox’s solos are all of a piece, various broodings on Ahab’s obsessive thirst for revenge. He demonstrates an admirable ability to keep the energy going through all of these (particularly with his left leg tied back).

Erhard Rom's set.

Longtime OSJ patrons should take note that this is Moby-Dick’s second round, an attempt to adapt the production to mid-sized theaters, and that their partners in this are operas in Utah, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Barcelona. In other words, Opera San Jose is a player. Founder Irene Dalis always focused her efforts on training singers for later success elsewhere, but I have to say, I enjoy the larger ambitions of her successor, Larry Hancock. San Jose is a major-league city, and it deserves to have productions of this importance.

I was lucky enough to review the SFpremiere of Heggie’s opera, and it’s interesting to note the changes. Where SFO was able to recreate the actual riggings of a ship, set designer Erhard Rom has created more symbolic pieces, and covered them with old navigational maps, both oceanic and astronomical. Pip’s lost-at-sea episode, previously accomplished with an airborne singer (!) now depends on a slideaway pocket next to the bridge. It works. The first whale-hunt, initially created with real boats and onstage waves, now employs boat-like constructs and a turntable that spins sailors across the briny. This works, too.

Greenhorn (Noah Stewart) and Queequeg (Ashraf Sewailam).

Sadly, what doesn’t work is the pivotal battle with the white whale. Freeze-frame impacts enacted in the slideaway pockets don’t really deliver. The turntable does a good job of dispensing with Starbuck’s crew. When we’re finally down to Ahab and a harpoon, a great whale’s eye rises from the stage – an effective device. I expected Ahab to turn and dive at it – blackout, we’re done. Instead, captain and harpoon both crumble to the stage and a screen of ocean drops from the flies.

Even that would be passable, but then we go to Greenhorn, adrift on a coffin, hailed by Captain Gardiner from his ship.

“What’s your name, lad?”

And Greenhorn sings out… (hint: first line of the novel, Call me…). Perfect ending, right?

Wrong. Greenhorn stands to wave farewell to the ghost of his friend, Queequeg, now appearing in that same slideaway pocket. What is this, the Ewok celebration from Star Wars? It’s opera – tragedy is not only allowed, it’s encouraged.

Joseph Marcheso turns in an athletic performance with Heggie’s ever-charging score, and his orchestra shows a great dynamic range. A new score could not be in better hands. Please note: any similarity between Ahab and some other leader willing to sacrifice his own workers in an ego-driven, obsessive pursuit of a great wall… er, whale, is wholy coincidental.

Through February 24, California Theatre, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. www.operasj.org, 408/437-4450.

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of 21 novels, including Operaville and Gabriella’s Voice.