Radical Acceptance in Chamber Opera:
Intersection Performs Perry’s The Weight of Light.
On May tenth, Intersection, Nashville’s “flexible contemporary music ensemble” presented Gillian Perry’s One-Act Chamber opera The Weight of Light (libretto by Marcus Amaker) in the Analog music room at the Hutton Hotel. Seemingly derived from Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, Amaker’s and Ravel’s works both feature not only speaking inanimate objects that the central character can hear, but they are employed towards a psychological end that centers their main character’s relationship with his/her mother. The difference here is one of contextual psychology. Ravel’s work is centered upon the child finding their way back to their mother (Ravel’s work culminates with the child singing “Maman”). A Catholic, who fell into “horrible despair” at the death of his mother, Ravel probably saw his mother as the closest thing to human perfection. On the other hand, Perry and Amaker’s story culminates with the child actually forgiving their mother for feeling shame over the powers they share—this is the gesture of radical acceptance. It is a 21st century tale that spins out nicely in a (almost too) short hour. For Intersection’s performance, the central character Emily was played by the charismatic, Nashville-based coloratura Ivy Calvert. Her Emily is a strong-willed idealist, whose naïveteRead More
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