Reviews

Virginia Opera Adds Fifth Opera, An American Dream
April 6, 2019, Harrison Opera House
Review by John Campbell

Presenting their first-ever chamber opera, Virginia Opera expanded their season with An American Dream by Jack Perla with libretto by Jessica Murphy-Moo, commissioned by Seattle Opera. A review of the premiere production can be found on page 93 of the November, 2015 issue of Opera News magazine.

We were excited that Virginia Opera would be presenting a new one-act opera, the first we'd seen there since Michael Ching's Que 67 in 1992. Pleased that we would be able to attend a new production, we were also concerned that it would be a “stand-and-sing” affair in the brightly daylit second floor lobby, as were some previous events we'd attended. Instead we were directed to enter a side door that lead up a flight of stairs directly to the stage of Harrison Opera House and ushered to our seats on the front row, facing the rear wall. Behind us rows of seats extended to the very edge of the covered orchestra pit and beyond that the darkened auditorium was strangely empty and quiet. Not ten feet in front of us was the set, a three-dimensional skeletal suggestion of a Puget Sound island farm house. At times the singers were inside the set; sometimes they stood in front of it, a few feet from us. We can't over-emphasize the intimacy, immediacy and intensity of this fully staged production.

Built around the ideal that every family should have a home, the story is focused on the interaction of two families and how injustice harms some people but makes others stronger.

The opera is set on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. Japanese immigrants Makoto and Hiroko Kobayashi and their daughter Setsuko live in a house on a prosperous farm they have built up. After Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, revenge by the U.S. Government was easy. The second family is Jim Crowley, a veteran of WWI who relocated from the Midwest after the Dust Bowl devastated that region and his German Jewish immigrant wife, Eva, who is awaiting information on the fate of her family left behind in Hitler's Germany.

In early 1942, fearful of arrest, the Kobayashis burn their personal treasures that link them to Japan but Setsuko, played effectively by Yeonji Lee, refused to burn her Hinamatsuri doll and hides it under a loose floorboard. The doll is the Empress figure given as a birth present to every baby girl.

When her father (Hidenori Inoue, the Bonze in Madama Butterfly) is arrested on spurious charges, Jim coerces him into selling their farm for a fraction of its worth. Before he's taken away, Kobayashi vows to return for Setsuko and his wife Hiroko, played by Kristen Choi (Suzuki in Virginia Opera's March, 2019 Madama Butterfly).

Before they give up their home to the Crowleys, Setsuko pockets a letter from Germany for Eva (mezzo-soprano Melisa Bonetti). Eva dreams of inviting her German parents to the farm, where “Jews can live here without fear.” Andrew Paulson, as her stern husband, Jim, forbids her to keep the few things the “Japs” left behind. She quietly defies him. She finds out where the Kobayashi family is interned and writes to tell them that she has something for them.

May, 1945 finds Setsuko with her mother gravely ill on a cot inside a shack surrounded by barbed wire at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Setsuko lies and tells her mother that Eva's letter is from her father telling them to keep hope alive since the war is ending soon.

In August 1945, Jim intercepts Setsuko's letter and tells Eva she is not allowed into their house. In a radio broadcast we hear President Truman's announcement of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. A month later Setsuko comes to the door and confronts Jim for taking their house for practically nothing. Eva returns the doll and Setsuko gives her the letter she pocketed years before. Setsuko has to finish reading it to her when Eva collapses and Jim tries to comfort her.

In 65 minutes, this emotionally gripping story has been told. The performers were all excellent but the transformation of a timid but determined girl into a powerful, outspoken young woman by Yeonji Lee was best of all. My lasting impression of the experience was how complex war makes doing the right thing.

The FBI agent (Dylan Elza, chorus in Madama Butterful) who arrests Makoto Kobayashi was not shown as a villain but as someone just carrying out his duties. Both Eva and Setsuko are immigrants, each with such different experiences of what the war meant in their lives, but both lost their mothers as a result.

Adam Turner, artistic director of Virginia Opera conducted from the piano. Michelle Hassler, violin; Elizabeth Richards, cello; and Nicole Starr, clarinet, were seated together to the left of the set.

The scenery was provided by Opera Maine. The staging was simple but effective. Lighting design was by Kenneth L. Steadman; Erin Lindsay Carr was stage manager; John Sundling designed the set; Shelby Roades was principal coach.

A period printed announcement was used as a scrim and was also included in the program booklet. It read “Instructions to All Japanese Living on Bainbridge Island” and set the grim tone of of losing one's home with no recourse. Japanese Americans and holocaust survivors are in some sense still looking for that lost home. After the performance, discussion with audience, cast and crew added depth to the experience.

A closing word about Virginia Opera's Variations Series. The series began in spring, 2018 with three contemporary short works to explore the world of Kurt Weill in preparation for the mainstage production of his opera Streetscene in fall 2018. The works featured the talented singers of the Emerging Artists Program sponsored by the Herndon Foundation. The plan is to continue exploring new works, new stories and new voices each year. It's a great idea and most welcome by those of us who are open to and searching for new musical experiences.

If you wonder about the relevance of this story being told now, consider that Fort Sill, Oklahoma is currently being renovated to house immigrant children.