Philip Glass' "Appomattox" at the Kennedy Center

[YouOverThere]

I was arm-twisted into spending a lot of money to see the final performance of Philip Glass' oper,a Appomattox at the Kennedy Center on Nov. 22. This production is heavily revised from the original version that premiered in San Francisco in 2007. In the original version, the last days of the Civil War filled most of the opera, with 3 flash forwards - the Colfax massacre, the 1964 murder of 3 civil rights workers in Mississippi, and visit to the prison where Edgar Ray Killen - the mastermind of the 1964 murders - was imprisoned. The revised opera condensed the Civil War portion (along with the Colfax massacre) down to the 1st (of 2) acts, albeit a rather lenghty act, and created a largely new 2nd act highlighting Martin Luther King's and LBJ's efforts to eliminate barriers that prevented blacks from voting along with the 1964 murders and Edgar Ray Killen segments.

It was an interesting attempt at a social statement, but ended up being a little too preachy for my taste, as if Glass and Librettist Christopher Hampton didn't trust that if they merely presented a story about blacks' struggles for freedom and equal rights that the audience would get their point. Especially, the Edgar Ray Killen segment, in which he sings about how necessary he thought the murders were and how worthless he thought that the Jewish and black people killed were, seemed pointless.

As opera, well, it didn't do much for me. The music was, IMHO, mediocre. There was little variation in tempo or style in the vocal parts over the nearly 2 hours and 50 minutes of performance, no matter whether it was Martin Luther King or Robert E. Lee or Mary Todd Lincoln that was singing. The orchestra parts often seemed unrelated to the singing. The stories (there really were 2 separate stories) moved along so slowly that it would have been possible to take a visit to the restroom during the performance without feeling like you missed anything.

I'm guessing that this opera won't be widely performed because of the expense (due to the large number of leading roles). I won't say that it's not worth seeing, but I wouldn't suggest that someone pay a lot of money to see it.

[dirac]

Thank you for telling us about the performance, YouOverThere. I took a look at a few of the reviews and they don't disagree with you.Iwould be interested to hear from someone who's seen both productions. I can't say I was tempted to see the original, which premiered in my vicinity, although I probably should have done, just to take advantage of the opportunity. My concerns were yours - I didn't really feel the need to be preached at and it sounded as if I was going to be. I can certainly understand the focus on the racial aspects of the conflict, though. Probably the audience wouldn't sit still for a soaring aria about tariff disputes.

[kfw]

The Washington Post's Anne Midgette is an outlier here:

. . . although I didn’t see the opera in San Francisco, I can say that if you didn’t see this Act II, which manages to bring Martin Luther King Jr. and LBJ and their contemporaries to musical life without being stilted or preachy or eye-rolling, and which sears across the stage like a firework of light and color and rage and pain and beauty, then you haven’t yet really seen “Appomattox.”

Thanks for the review. After reading Midgette, I was tempted to see this.

A recent Guggenheim Works and Process evening was devoted to the opera.

[dirac]

"...............which sears across the stage like a firework of light and color and rage and pain and beauty,"

Golly. Most of Midgette's commenters seem to agree with YouOverThere, though.

[YouOverThere]

I usually agree with Anne Midgette's reviews. I guess that we all have are little quirks that cause us to have some unique tastes.

There was enthusiastic applause with a partial standing ovation. I don't know if definitive conclusions can be drawn from that, because regardless of what one thought of the music one would have to acknoledge that there were some pretty impressive singers in the cast. Really, the singing, acting, and staging were all high quality.

[dirac]

The current political environment and cultural tensions could be at work as well. When Midgette writes, "I think everyone should see it," I suspect that's not merely for aesthetic reasons.