Music Review
New Ring For Legend Of Boxing: Opera Stage
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/arts/music/approaching-ali-by-d-j-sparr-at-kennedy-center.html?ref=music&_r=0
WASHINGTON — Anna Nicole Smith, Richard M. Nixon and Harvey
Milk are among the prominent figures chosen as protagonists by opera composers
in the late-20th and 21st centuries. Joining them, in “Approaching Ali,” which
had its premiere on Saturday at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater here, is
Muhammad Ali.
The opera was commissioned under the auspices of the
Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative, a laudable program to
train American composers that began last fall with 20-minute chamber operas.
The organization hopes that as the selected composers learn how to write for
the voice and develop plot lines, they will progress to writing more
substantial works.
Francesca Zambello,
the company’s artistic director, and Michael Heaston, director of the
Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, mentored the composer D. J. Sparr as he
wrote “Approaching Ali,” which was developed during various workshops.
Described as a “family opera in one act,” the work — with a libretto by Davis
Miller and Mark Campbell — is inspired by Mr. Miller’s “Tao of Muhammad Ali,” a
1997 memoir about his friendship with the boxing legend.
The opera recounts how Mr. Miller, hoping for an autograph,
knocks on the door of Mr. Ali’s mother’s house and is invited in for dinner. He
establishes a friendship with the fighter, who helps him overcome various
personal problems to become a professional kickboxer and sportswriter.
It’s ripe dramatic
material, with an essential larger-than-life character in Mr. Ali and an apt
balance of humor and pathos in the libretto. Echoes of Aaron Copland, Leonard
Bernstein, Benjamin Britten and Carl Orff surface in the eclectic but often
unmemorable score, whose lively percussion elements were influenced by the
sound of boxing gongs.
Over all, the music
didn’t always serve the story, which would have benefited from more assertive
vocal writing and greater harmonic tension. Steven Jarvi conducted a well-paced
reading, highlighting colorful touches like the chugging rhythms at the
conclusion.
Some of the most
alluring music was written for the character of Odessa Clay, Mr. Ali’s mother,
beautifully enacted by Aundi Marie Moore. She spun out the bluesy humming with
a honeyed tone, one of several Americana
elements of the score.
As for whether the
work is more a musical than an opera, for Ms. Zambello labeling is unnecessary.
“Opera” is derived from the Latin word for work, and she classifies opera,
operetta and musicals under the broader heading of “works.”
Ms. Moore was part of
a first-rate cast, a graduate of the company’s young artist program, of which
the bass Soloman Howard is a member. He wielded his sonorous voice to vivid
effect in the title role, his hands trembling from the effects of the
Parkinson’s disease that afflicts Mr. Ali.
As Davis Miller,
David Kravitz had the no-doubt strange experience of portraying a living
protagonist who was at the performance. A charismatic baritone, Mr. Kravitz
offered a vividly etched and satisfying interpretation of the author, who
reminisces in the opera about his troubled childhood.
Those scenes were
cleverly directed by Nicole Watson, with Paul Taylor’s attractive, simple sets
a vehicle for Mr. Miller’s flashbacks to his boyhood self, expressively sung by
Ethan McKelvain, a talented boy soprano. There were appealing visual effects —
like the silhouette of a man shadow boxing alongside the young Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller was
bullied as a child and lost his mother, Sara, who is poignantly rendered here
by the mezzo-soprano Catherine Martin. Tim Augustin offered a strong
performance as the bereaved Roy Miller, who valiantly tries to help his
mournful son.
In a genre dominated
by four-hour behemoths, it’s pleasantly rare to feel that a work is too short,
with the somewhat abrupt conclusion here leaving you wanting more.