Moby-Dick, San Francisco Opera, Oct. 18 2012

How do you make an opera out of a novel that’s almost as long as War and Peace? Well, War and Peace and Anna Karenina (which is almost as long) have been turned into operas. In the case of Anna Karenina, the composer stated that the first thing you do is to throw away 300 pages extolling the virtues of farm machinery. In the case of Moby-Dick, Jake Heggie and his librettist Gene Scheer decided to set the opera completely at sea, on board the Pequod, and to concentrate on the interpersonal relationships. Our pre-performance speaker, Desiree Mays, told us that Heggie had said that it was not necessary to read the novel before attending the opera—but that he hoped that attending the opera would encourage you to read the novel. To satisfy such urges, the opera shop at the War Memorial Opera House is stocking no fewer than four books: the novel itself, Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea (about the sinking of the whaling ship Essex by a whale, which inspired Herman Melville), the actual memoirs of the sailors who survived the sinking of the Essex 2000 nautical miles west of the South American coast, and Philbrick’s Why Read Moby Dick? Sigh ... more books to add to the list of “books I want to read some day.”

The production served the opera very well. As the orchestral prelude evoked calm seas far from land, stars appeared on the black curtain, and we were spiraled into the depths of the galaxy. Soon lines were drawn from star to star, as though to outline constellations, but I found no recognizable constellations. The number of lines increased, and before long they seemed to suggest the mast and rigging of a tall ship. The lines began to curve and increase in number, and we saw a line drawing of a whaling ship that advanced toward us and passed us at very close quarters, almost running us over. Exceptionally effective!

When the curtain went up, we saw the deck of a whaling ship, with a huge mast in the center of the stage, lots of ropes strung at various angles, and two steel booms (like crane booms) made out of triangulated tubing held vertically or nearly vertically. When the libretto called for a sailor to ascend a mast, he would climb up one of these booms. Sometimes the rigging was deployed right at the front of the stage; the amount of rigging changed from scene to scene. At the back of the stage was a curved surface of 1 x 4 planks, looking like the hull of a ship as seen from inside. On this wall were three sets of small seats, which singers could climb up to and sit upon while the projected image surrounded six men on their seats with the outline of the small dinghy used in the actual harpooning of a whale. Although the seats were stationary, slight movements in the projected dinghies adequately conveyed the idea of the boats being tossed by the waves.

After a whale had been harpooned and brought back to the Pequod, a center section of the wall of planks was lowered. Through this hatch we saw part of the body of the whale being rendered in the tryworks. Underneath the platform created by opening the hatch was Ahab’s quarters, just a solid block that served first as a table where Ahab studied his charts, and later served as his bed.

In the encounter with the great white whale, the men resumed their positions on the small seats and their dinghies were projected. As Moby Dick smashed each dinghy, the projections scattered into myriad planks, and the men jumped off their seats and slid down the wall of planks, then ran offstage. Then the Pequod itself was projected, and it sank. At the very end, the hatch came down again, and Greenhorn (the sole survivor) was seen resting, exhausted, on the coffin that Queequeg had ordered built for himself. Through the hatch we saw blue sky and clouds as Captain Gardiner of the Rachel called out to Greenhorn, “Who are you?” and Greenhorn replied, “Call me Ishmael.”

Our cast:
Captain Ahab: Jay Hunter Morris (a.k.a. Jayhab)
Greenhorn (Ishmael): Stephen Costello
Starbuck: Morgan Smith    
Queequeg: Jonathan Lemalu
Pip: Talise Trevigne
Flask: Matthew O’Neill    
Stubb: Robert Orth    
Conductor: Patrick Summers    
Director: Leonard Foglia    
Set Designer: Robert Brill

My experience fell short of what I expected based on reviews and talking with people who had already seen the opera. The orchestral music fit the story without being particularly memorable, with the exception of the prelude. My primary reservation had to do with the driving, propulsive force of the music. It was good music, there was just too much of that kind of music. I wished for more lyrical interludes, more of the kind of music that we heard at the end of Act 1, where Starbuck decides not to shoot Ahab in his sleep. We did get more lyrical interludes in Act 2; I wish some of them had leaked into Act 1. The vocal lines also failed to impress me. There were a number (fortunately not a large number) of single syllables set to multiple notes that seemed to jump about randomly—not as randomly or as disjunct as I have heard in other modern operas, but nevertheless not as musical as I would have liked. To the credit of the librettist, I heard no trite phrases of the form “Who was that on the telephone?” or “I’ll have to give you a geography lesson.” Two passages will stick in my memory: the prelude and the choral number “Lost in the heart of the sea.”

One person I had talked with earlier opined that the role of Captain Ahab was better suited for Ben Heppner than for Jay Hunter Morris, and indeed the role was written for Heppner. I have an immense amount of respect for Morris, whose Siegfried Siegfried for the Met was nothing short of amazing, but I can imagine that a heavier, darker voice would have been more appropriate for Ahab.  Morgan Smith was outstanding both in the quality of his tone and in his diction. Talise Trevigne did nicely as the cabin boy Pip. She sang for a while with Opera San Jose, and I wish she had stuck around longer. Orchestral playing was superb.

I had hoped that Moby-Dick would be even more impressive than Dead Man Walking, at which I remember thinking about 10 minutes in, if this keeps up, it’s going to be standing ovation time. Well, it did and it was—it was highly effective and tremendously moving. In contrast, at this performance of Moby-Dick, very few people rose to their feet until Heggie himself came out to take a bow. Was it an off night for the performers? Perhaps; it happens. But based on what I saw and heard, it was only a beta. But I’ll give it another try. And I would like to read the novel.