 SWAIM, KAVELHUNA IN CINCINNATI CONSERVATORY SEASONS IN HELL |
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SWAIM, KAVELHUNA IN CINCINNATI CONSERVATORY SEASONS IN HELL |
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CINCINNATI | |
Conservative Cincinnati was in for a musical shock with the February 8 premiere of Harold Blumenfeld's Seasons in Hell, a vivid portrayal of the poetry and life of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91). This homosexual love story, set to expressionistic music, tested
the audience's musical/moral sophistication, but most remained to cheer. The major part of Rimbaud's verse was written between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, a period of debauchery, including an affair with fellow poet Paul Verlaine (1844-96), but then
, in an incomprehensible turn, Rimbaud renounced poetry and his dissolute life to immigrate to Abyssinia as a coffee trader and gunrunner. A synovitis tumor, resulting in the amputation of his right leg, led to his early death.
Using paraphrases of Rimbaud's verses and correspondence, librettist Charles Kondek has constructed a cinematic double chronology, telling Younger Rimbaud's story in forward order, alternating with a reverse traversal of Older Rimbaud's life, the two
confronting each other at age nineteen. Baritones portray Younger and Older Rimbaud, with a soprano as the Voice of Rimbaud, singing in French lines from his poetry, as muse and commentator.
Blumenfeld has handled his orchestration masterfully, treating the percussion (five players, sixty-two instruments) with
exquisite reserve, underscoring and supporting the lean vocal line, designed to keep the text intelligible. Short melodic phrases, with frequent excursions into the highest part of the voice, are contrasted with sonic outbursts from the orchestra.
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Designer Paul Shortt's stage, bare to the walls, relied on simple staircases and props (hospital bed, wheelchair), moved about easily by white-coverall-clad stagehands, and dramatic lighting effects. Director Malcolm Fraser brilliantly caught the violent
mood, including an opium-induced orgy in which the nearly naked Younger Rimbaud and Verlaine splashed each other and the stage with gaudy paint, followed by a blinding vision of Rimbaud as Icarus soaring to the sun and crashing midstage.
The opening-night principals were superior to the alternate cast. Michael Kavelhuna (Younger Rimbaud) was fiercely intense, demented in genius, singing powerfully in a luscious baritone. Equally strong was the Verlaine of tenor Timothy Swaim, the inte
raction with Kavelhuna creating electric drama. As Older Rimbaud, Craig Phillips was a stately study in tragedy, precise in diction, coolly sung. The alternate principals (Feb. 9) were far less involved, though they sang well. Randall Gremillion made Youn
ger Rimbaud more country bumpkin than crazed genius, while Chad Smith missed the tragic dimensions of Verlaine's degradation. Philip Mark Horst was tentative as Older Rimbaud. In all five performances, Mary Elizabeth Kures, not helped by overmiked electro
nic effects, struggled with the highlying lines of the Voice of Rimbaud. Conductor Gerhard Samuel got a neat, well-controlled performance from his massive forces.
CHARLES H. PARSONS
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Harold Blumenfeldhttp://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~blumenf/
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Harold Blumenfeld's three operas, "Seasons in Hell", "Fourscore - an Opera of Opposites" and "Breakfast Waltzes" - all to libretti by collaborator
Charles Kondek - are published, along with the composer's other works, by MMB Music Inc, 3526
Washington Ave., St. Louis MO 63103. FAX 314 531-8384.
Blumenfeld is represented by Friedman/Goetz Associates, 11 Worth St, New York NY 10013, FAX 212 226-6788, e-mail FGASSOC@aol.com Materials may be secured from Friedman/Goetz, from MMB Music Inc, and may be consulted at the American Music Center, New York. All works © Copyright MMB Music, Inc. |