Visitations: Theotokia & The War Reporter, Two Chamber Operas (World premiere Stanford commissions)
2013-04-12
Bing Concert Hall
Stanford University, 327 Lasuen St, Palo Alto, CA
8:00 PM, Friday, April 12, 2013

[7:58 PM, seated and ready to go! 8:03 PM, lights down]

1. Mother Anne, spiritual leader of the Shakers, invites Leon and her congregants to obtain a secret knowledge.
2. The Yeti Mother, an imaginary mother of God, calls to Leon from her cave in the Himalayas, promising to call him home to her.
3. Leon, an institutionalized schizophrenic, compulsively beats out a rhythm on his own body.
4. Leon’s mother visits and tells the story of her son’s illness, concluding accusatorily, “How could he do this to me?”
5. Leon obsessively reiterates his mother’s question, his speech transforming into glossolalia as he invokes the Yeti Mother.
6. The Yeti Mother answers Leon’s distress with a song in celebration of excrement.
7. The Yeti Mother reveals that she is Leon’s true mother, and that she, along with her congregation of yetis, will help Leon transcend his physical limitations.
8. The Yeti Mother and her yeti children transform into Mother Anne and her congregants once again, soothing Leon with the knowledge that he is now in possession of a secret knowledge. In a rare and painful moment of lucidity, however, Leon realizes that he is alone and suffering from his mental illness.
   [8:40 PM work ends]

• Heather Buck as Mother Anne, Leon's mother, and Yeti Mother: soprano vox;

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♂ New York Polyphony ♂

• Christopher Dylan Herbert as congregant: baritone vox;
• Craig Phillips as congregant: bass vox;
• Geoffrey Williams as Leon: countertenor vox;
• Steven Caldicott Wilson as congregant: tenor vox;

[9:04 PM performers enter]

1. Mogadishu
2. Columbia University
3. Johannesburg
4. Mosul
5. Phoenix
   [9:56 PM work ends]

• Heather Buck as Honderich and one of Paul's inner voices: soprano vox;

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♂ New York Polyphony ♂

• Christopher Dylan Herbert as Paul Watson: baritone vox;
• Craig Phillips as Cleveland: bass vox;
• Geoffrey Williams as one of Paul's inner voices: countertenor vox;
• Steven Caldicott Wilson as Cleveland's Brother and one of Paul's inner voices: tenor vox.

St. Lawrence String Quartet

• Christopher Costanza: cello;
• Geoff Nutall: violin;
• Lesley Robertson: viola;
• Scott St. John: violin;

• Pascal Archer: clarinet;
• Pedja Muzijevic: piano;
• Tara Helen O’Connor: flute;
• Steven Schick: percussion
• Stephen Tramontozzi: bass;

• Jonathan Berger: composer;
• Mark DeChiazza: videography;
• Rinde Eckert: director;
• Dan O’Brien: librettist;
• Christopher Rountree: conductor.

Tonight we enjoyed our best seats of the season thus far – smack dab in the middle of row H, a great vantage point to observe the theatrics of tonight's two works. And the sound tonight was excellent, except for one very important issue, which is that the singing was not especially intelligible. I can't say whether this is a matter of enunciation on the part of the singers, acoustic issues with the hall, or a simply failure of hearing on our part, but no matter the cause, it was quite annoying! As both Ting and Tom mentioned during the intermission, it would have really helped to have supertitles projected up on the walls.

For my part, I enjoyed both works, and found the music to be consistently interesting, if not necessarily tuneful or memorable (as many sections of interstitial music seemed to consist more of sound effects rather than melodies or harmonic development of the songs). I was also surprised at the absence of any significant arias – in fact, it seems like a rather startling omission, but I suppose that was a conscious decision, made for brevity's sake.

Mark Dechiazza has posted links to several videos from these two works on his website.

Stanford Live promo article

Jesse Hamlin's promo for SFCV

Rebecca Wallace' promo for Palo Alto Weekly