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 naïvete is matched only by her determination. Of course, this determination is confronted by her mother, played by soprano Sara Crigger. Her mother, who also speaks with…things, feels nothing but shame for her and her daughter’s abilities.
Calvert’s soaring soprano was wonderful in the opening scenes, where register and innocence correlate, and her expressions throughout, so important in an unstaged work, were absolutely priceless. Crigger, who has been appearing in nearly everything in Nashville lately (Lucia and Carmen for starters) was the beautiful but caring mother, and her mezzo gave her character’s troubled emotions a rich and heavy depth.
Emily’s friend Trevor, played by the remarkable tenor Frank Convit, nearly stole the show. His character’s difficulties, heartrendingly drawn in an incredibly patient and well-paced aria, constantly in dialogue with Todd Waldecker’s gentle clarinet, become the soil from which Emily’s empathy is grown. The number’s climax (“is there something wrong with me?!”) was magnificent and chilling. When we entered Analogue, we were given instagramesque hearts to raise when we heard a beautiful moment that we liked, and this was an amazing moment, but it was so profound that I didn’t want to corrupt it with a banal social media gesture!
Perry’s score is well considered. It’s hard to know from just one hearing, but I believe it is drawn organically towards one five note motive that rises and folds in on itself. The motive doesn’t serve as a seed so much as it does the goal, which is achieved when it is finally set to the text “…we are who we are…” (the moment of that radical acceptance). Corcoran’s ensemble played Perry’s extended techniques well, the strings, Emily Crane (violine) Cristina Micci-Barreca (viola) and Meghan Berindean (cello), deserve special mention for the harmonics and Corcoran’s nuanced blending sounded fantastic in Analogue’s strange setting (I think it might be better for jazz than classical chamber opera, but the chandelier sure is cool).
A graduate of Southern Methodist University, with studies at the California Institute of Arts as well as at the EAMA-Nadia Boulanger Institute in Paris, Perry developed The Weight of Light as part of the Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Initiative, a program guided and overseen by Lidiya Yankovskaya. This is the second work from this program that has appeared in Nashville, the other being Shawn Okpebholo’s Cook-Off from last season. It appears (and sounds) like Chicago is leading the country in developing the next generation of opera composers. The Weight of Light is gentle, introspective, caring, important and beautiful; if this is what Gen-Z’s operas are going to sound like, I want to hear more!
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Joseph E. Morgan is a father of two, husband, teacher and recovering guitarist in Middle Tennessee.
