NEW YORK, Nov. 27 -- American opera is in no danger of extinction as an artistic species as long as talented young composers such as Deborah Drattell come up with dramatically fascinating and musically distinguished works like her "Lilith," a premiere production of the New York City Opera.
The company's former composer in residence, Drattell first tackled the subject of Lilith -- who was Adam's banished first wife according to Jewish Old Testament apocrypha -- as an orchestral work performed by the New York Philharmonic and recorded by the Seattle Symphony in the 1980s on the Delos label.
She reshaped the work into a chamber opera version and later into a three-act work that was performed in concert version at the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y., three seasons ago. Since Glimmerglass is connected with the NYCO through the mutual directorship of Paul Kellogg, the work was given its first staged performances at Lincoln Center this month.
It was enthusiastically received by audiences and should remain in the NYCO repertory for several seasons, giving the name Lilith even wider public currency than it has as a model for strong women who have formed Lilith groups across the nation in recent years. Good things are already happening for Drattell, in the form of several new commissions including an opera version of "Nicholas and Alexandra" for the Los Angeles Opera.
"Lilith" deals with a confrontation between Lilith and Eve, Adam's official Biblical wife, at the first man's funeral, an Orthodox Jewish affair with a male chorus in black hats on stage throughout the opera. Eve is forced to reveal the identity of Lilith, doomed to be a seductive virago, to her children (Son and Daughter) and to reach some sort of accommodation with her predecessor despite differences rooted in sacred and profane love.
But they remain competitors, representing the two halves of female nature, a dichotomy that cannot live in harmony but survives by letting one dimension dominate.
Born from the earth, as was Adam, Lilith remains the sensual aggressor, equal to any man, whereas Eve was fashioned from Adam's rib and remains the subservient, nurturing wife and mother no matter how hard she envies and tries to copy Lilith's lifestyle. Eve grows old. Lilith remains forever young.
The theme of the opera would appear to be redemption sought but never achieved on the part of both Lilith, who would like to be more like Eve, and Eve, who would like to be more like Lilith. Eve's search for Lilith involves a trip back to Eden, a withered garden with one remaining apple.
Beth Clayton, a remarkably beautiful and bright-voiced mezzo-soprano who hails from El Dorado, Ark., made her NYCO debut as Lilith. She is able to conveying her dissatisfactions and resentments with the role fate has given her by luck of creation with displays of emotional turmoil that are devastatingly real and dramatically powerful.
Clayton was cast against a company veteran of 10 years, Lauren Flanigan, NYCO's reigning soprano dubbed by Time magazine "the thinking man's diva."
Starting out low-keyed performance in widow's weeds and veil, Flanigan works up to high-intensity drama dressed only in a revealing satin slip as she attempts to develop the Lilith in her personality. This was a tour de force performance that goes a long way toward making Drattell's opera as effective as it is and in gilding Flanigan's already burnished reputation as a singing actress.
The cast was rounded out by Dana Beth Miller, a soprano from Topeka, Kan., who made her NYCO debut as Daughter, Marcus DeLoach as Son, and Tom Nelis as the Seer, a prophetic character wearing a Jewish prayer shawl. All of them were impressive in performance, especially Miller who has a large, richly textured voice and an outstanding stage presence.
The libretto drawn from the Hebrew Cabala by David Steven Cohen is abstract and poetic, and Drattell's score, confidently conducted by George Manahan, is generally vivid, at times powerful, and rich in long-arching lyricism. Dissonance is used only to express primal tensions.
Drattell occasionally draws on Middle Eastern musical modes and includes one quote from Hebraic music, a traditional Sabbath prayer, "Cleanse This Soul of Mortal Ruin." The musical tritone, a rarely used augmented fourth interval, is employed repeatedly to suggest the diabolical. The one weakness of the score is the droning repetition of orchestral figures that serve as background music in the less confrontational scenes of the opera.
The work has the formality of ritual drama, all movement carefully choreographed by noted post-modern theater director Anne Bogart whoeven has given straightback chairs carried and sat upon by the male chorus a ceremonial significance. Designer John Conklin's minimalist settings -- moonlight-drenched midnight blue and sun-bleached noontime white -- added to the haunting quality of the production, and James Schuette's contemporary costumes had a timeless look.NEWLN: Content: 01011000
