American Tragedy, Operatic Triumph?
![Christian Bowers as Clyde Griffiths and Vanessa Isiguen as Roberta Alden in The Glimmerglass Festival's new production of Tobias Picker's "An American Tragedy." (Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival)](https://www.allotsego.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/american-tragedy.jpg)
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.
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