Live theater in the mountains

 Before "Utopia,", I dipped a low-key toe in the water first with two performances at the Seagle Festival, the century-old summer program for blooming opera singers in the scenic town of Schroon Lake, N.Y., in the Adirondack Mountains.

The Oscar Seagle Memorial Theater

General Director Tony Kostecki and Artistic Director Darren K. Woods have, over the past few years, developed consistently fascinating programs that challenge their students and keep audiences engaged.

This year, love and romance was the theme. There was a mix of classics (La Boheme, Cinderella, The Fantasticks and a Broadway revue), along with and new or little-known works. Having seen most of the classics in years of opera-going, I'm most interested in the new and overlooked gems and this summer did not disappoint.

 

Who knew that Jacques Offenbach, who stepped firmly into the classics world with "Tales of Hoffman" and "Orpheus in the Underworld," wrote a little gender-bending confection called The Island of Tulipatan?

Written in 1868, this one-act operetta concerns a fantasy kingdom where the daughter of the steward of the supreme ruler (got that?) is a tomboy named Hermosa and Prince Alexis, son of the ruler, is a charming and pretty young man.

This is not an early dramatization of trans life, but due to some silly decisions by their parents, Hermosa -- who is actually a boy -- has been brought up as a girl and Alexis -- who is actually -- well, you get the picture. They genuinely fall in love and marry, now dressed in the clothing usually identified by their actual gender. 

Directed by Seagle alumna Meaghan Deiter, this frothy confection sparkled. Daniel Esteban Lugo was a suitably energetic Hermosa and Andrianna Ayala a graceful Alexis.

Last year, Seagle produced virtual performances, as did so many arts organizations. Arriving in person at the Oscar Seagle Memorial Theater in the woods, the live experience in 2021 didn't seem too much different from previous years, except for showing vaccination cards, wearing masks and not having intermission snacks or merch for sale. 

Seating was spaced out a little more for social distancing, but once the show started, it felt like being back in a comfy armchair. 

Several weeks later, I returned for the world premiere of Harmony, also directed by Deiter -- a very different work from Tulipatan.

Who knew (again) that the brilliant American composer Charles Ives fell in love with the daughter of a prominent Connecticut family that summered in the Adirondacks, that her name was actually Harmony, that Mark Twain was a close family friend and advised the Twichell family about Harmony and Charles' relationship?

It's all true, and the basis for this new opera with music by Robert Carl and a libretto by author Russell Banks, who is married to poet Chase Twichell, of that same family.

 

The action takes place completely in midsummer, 1908 at the Keene Valley, N.Y. summer home of the Twichells. The opera shapes the characters with great humanity and kindness. A central part of the plot is that Ives is a man with a secret. He has diabetes, which could not be treated at the time. All he can foresee is an early death and he loves Harmony too much to allow her to marry a sick man. 

Besides the fact that this is a work about Ives the composer told through music, the character of Ives in Harmony continuously refers to music, from the music of the spheres as he regards the summer night sky to a "tragic dissonance" in some words he hears. 

Charles Ives, besides being a successful, even innovative, insurance executive, was an astonishingly original composer.

In 1966, Igor Stravinsky said that Ives "was exploring the 1960s during the heyday of Strauss and Debussy. Polytonality, atonality, tone clusters, perspectivistic effects, chance, statistical composition, permutation, add-a-part, practical-joke and improvisatory music: these were Ives' discoveries a half-century ago as he quietly set about devouring the contemporary cake before the rest of us even found a seat at the same table."

It's probably not a spoiler to reveal that Charles and Harmony decide to get married as Twain advises them not to throw away love, wistfully recalling his late wife Olivia. Harmony is one tough lady. She has her eyes wide open; she is a nurse and understands Charles' situation.

Banks' libretto sings with poetry and the cast did a beautiful job: Joel Clemens as Charles Ives, Victoria Erickson as Harmony Twichell (photo, left) and especially Timothy Lupia as Mark Twain, a character that could have devolved into caricature. 

Carl's music, however, was a harsh stumbling block for this listener. Perhaps the score's discordant sound was a tribute to or reflection of Ives; it just wasn't attractive to hear.    

At this performance, there was an incident that I could only have witnessed live. Seagle's audience is mostly north of age 60, and I wondered how this material would appeal to a younger audience. Then I spotted two young women seated in the row in front of me, students, perhaps. One of them was looking up Olivia Clemens on her iPad.

I was pleased to learn through later research that the discovery of insulin in 1921 by Banting, Best and MacLeod did not come too late for Ives. He lived 79 years, to 1954, and Harmony lived to age 90, dying in 1969. What a fitting coda for their life songs.