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New ‘Solomon’ Opera from Sharon Willis
OPERA REVIEW Sharon Willis' "The Seduction of King Solomon." Friday at the Interdenominational Theological Center. www.americoloropera.org
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Talented Atlanta composers who complain they can’t get their music performed — you know who you are — should pay attention to Sharon Willis, Atlanta’s opera composer.
Seven years ago, Willis, a Clark Atlanta University music professor, formed a community troupe, Americolor Opera Alliance, for the purpose of staging her own works.
In that time, she’s been a model of industry: she’s written, produced and premiered seven evening-length operas, most of them exploring the tangled themes of ambition, racism and the African-American struggle — from Atlanta’s first black millionaire (“The Herndons”) to the slave who traveled with the Lewis and Clark expedition (“The Great Divide”). In creative drive and chutzpah, no other Atlanta composer can match her.
Her latest, “The Seduction of King Solomon,” premiered Friday in the chapel of the Interdenominational Theological Center. It’s a retelling of the biblical Israelite ruler’s wisdom, splendor and his ultimate sex-and-idolatry downfall.
At three hours long, with a cast of 32 local singers, plus dancers, narrator and assorted extras, “Solomon” is a typical Willis creation: she’s made room for the whole community. Homemade costumes, screens draped with colorful fabric and a few pharaoh-era props — a golden throne, tall columns, warriors with faux-leather breastplates and feather-capped helmets — served as the visuals.
Like her earlier operas, too, Willis’ libretto is sprawling, earnest and devoid of irony. Rare among 21st century composers, it seems, she doesn’t do post-modern artifice; she doesn’t use opera to delve into psychoanalysis, philosophy or the agony and euphoria of the human spirit.
Musically, she blends traditional opera styles, spirituals, Gershwinesque songs and, in some of the slow numbers, R&B pop ballads. While no tunes stick in the head, the music is singable.
And by including West African djembe drums among her nine-musician ensemble, she rejects now-fashionable notions of pictorial authenticity: just as Bach made Christ a German Lutheran in his Passions, so Willis sets the ancient Holy Land in some idealized black America of the Deep South.
For all that, the score’s cragginess is its defining element. Like the best folk art, the whole show feels homemade, sincere, outside the mainstream.
The principal singers were uniformly appealing, if not all up to the vocal challenges. Baritone Jonathan Blanchard, as Solomon, wavered out of tune but held a commanding presence. As Queen Ameera, soprano Reisha Jones mostly pouted on stage, but she was wonderful in the aria “Am I Not the Pharoah’s Daughter?,” with its pleasing high notes and falling chromatic scales.
The opera’s musical highlight came in Solomon’s most sensational action: two harlots each claim a baby as their own; the wise king calls their bluff and offers to split the infant with a sword; the real mother sacrifices her claim to save the baby’s life.
Soprano Bernice Hogan Hall, as the honest harlot, had the best voice in the cast, powerful, clear and ringing. She sparred to great effect with Kimberly Edwards-Hall, as the lying harlot. (Interesting comparison: in George Frideric Handel’s 1749 oratorio of “Solomon,” he reveals each harlot’s character in the music, one sweet and patient, the other jumpy and neurotic. Willis depicts both woman in musical parallel, where only their words set them apart.)
Still, this potent little scene raised several questions. How would Willis’ opera sound with skilled singers and a much smaller cast? What if the operas were much shorter, with less spoken dialogue and more to-the-point arias? While offering fewer opportunities for local singers, Willis’ operatic voice might fully blossom.
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By CC
September 10, 2007 4:20 PM | Link to this
There are PLENTY of professionally trained African American opera singers in the metro-Atlanta area that could have pulled this opera off to its potential. TO think they aren’t here is ridiculous. The problem is there where too many singers pretending to be opera singers without the proper training needed to be REAL opera singers in the show. If you are a jazz or pop singer, that is great. This doesn’t mean you will fool people into believing you are a opera singer. This takes years and years of training. You could tell who really sang opera as a profession and who didn’t in this show. The work Sharon Willis wrote was beautiful. Some of the singers killed it. I wish the company and the auditions were publicized on a broader scale, and that the right casting would have taken place that way. There are too many African American opera singers with undergraduate, masters, and doctorates from the top music schools in the country in this area for pop opera singers to be casted instead. I hope she can advertise more of the company, so the RIGHT singers can find themselves doing her show justice.
By Krista Crawford
September 12, 2007 9:59 AM | Link to this
I am a little confused by the statement”Willis sets the ancient Holy Land in some idealized black America of the Deep South”. That statement sounds a little ignorant to me. I saw the opera on Sunday. I saw a setting in the ancient Holy Land in Africa 3000 years ago with people that probably looked more authentic than other interpretations of the same story. Willis storytelling and composing was wonderful. There was nothing in this performance of “King Solomon” that slightly portrays the Deep South or African Americans. I am sure that when funding and sponsorships are in place, her operas will be able to be perform in a theater with costumes and sets that will captivate audiences everywhere. Bravo to a divine effort.
By Joseph Tarver
September 17, 2007 1:45 PM | Link to this
Dear CC,
It is apparent that you do not understand the composers mission, which is to give performance opportunities to singers of all backgrounds. The story of the Opera determines the kind of singers and music that is needed. If you had come to see Madame CJ you would have heard blues, jazz and classical music. She is not trying to replicate The Met, Houston or Atlanta Opera. Don’t be a player hater! If want to auditon simply contact the composer via website. However, she is looking for performers to help build a company. If you are a singer that will have his/her hand out at the end of a performance for a check; you need not apply! In other words, we will see you at The Met.
Joseph Tarver Cast/Americolor Opera