Word: bolcom
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...Gandhi's nonviolent pacifism, operas have taken on such subjects as the thawing of the cold war (John Adams' Nixon in China), a horrifying mass murder (John Moran's The Manson Family) and the life and times of a fiery black radical (Anthony Davis' X). Throw in William Bolcom's 1992 McTeague, a setting of Frank Norris' wrenching turn-of-the-century novel, and Steve Reich's The Cave, a challenging examination of the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict that gets its American premiere this week in Brooklyn, and you have something like a Golden Age of American opera...
...untapped audiences hungering for something new. But as long as symphonies insist on treating their customers to the same handful of well-known works -- masterpieces though they may be -- symphonic music will lack the excitement that attends a new music-theater piece by Philip Glass, John Corigliano or William Bolcom...
...have hit an operatic mother lode. Within the past year, the Metropolitan Opera has staged two successful world premieres by Americans, John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and Philip Glass's The Voyage. This month, through Nov. 24, Lyric Opera of Chicago is striking pay dirt with William Bolcom's McTeague. Eureka...
Until now, Frank Norris' 1899 novel was best known as the inspiration for Erich von Stroheim's 1924 silent epic Greed. Bolcom has given the material a brash, distinctive voice. His score evokes turn-of-the-century America in a slick, seamless potpourri of retro modernism, long, loose-limbed melodies and irresistible rhythmic invention...
...contrast to the cinematically luxurious Greed, the libretto of McTeague -- by Bolcom's longtime collaborator Arnold Weinstein and director Robert Altman -- relates the action in spare, simple prose. McTeague (tenor Ben Heppner), a powerful brute who has set up shop as an unlicensed dentist in San Francisco, falls in love with his best friend Marcus Schouler's girl, Trina (soprano Catherine Malfitano, in a marvelously sensual performance). After Trina wins $5,000 in a lottery -- and McTeague's practice is ruined when the jealous Marcus (baritone Timothy Nolen) reports him to the authorities -- the relationship sinks slowly into a morass...