American Tragedy, Operatic Triumph?
By ROBERT MOYNIHAN • allotsego.com
Too many superlatives exist in this Glimmerglass production for reservations – yet a few exist. On the positive side, the staging is brilliant – with multiple levels originally seen in Arthur Miller's “Death of a Salesman.”
However, this staging far surpasses them. The horrible drowning – either by murder or accident – achieves a paradox of representative horror held within emotional bounds. So does the final electrocution, awful, but contained within the boundary of representative art.
Gene Sheer's libretto moves without impediment – with a beautiful pivot in the church service at the middle of the work. The singing in that sequence is of recognizable melodic pattern.