Review: Missy Mazzoli’s latest opera is still a work in progress

From our roving reviewer, Susan Hall:

The North American premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s opera, The Listeners, took place at Opera Philadelphia on September 25. Mazzoli is a hometown hero. Her smashing opera based on the Lars von Trier film, Breaking the Waves, was also developed by Opera Philadelphia. She chose to write this new work on a sonic theme. The sounds of humming, heard around the world in the last fifty years, seemed a good focus.

Jordan Tannahill wrote a seven page story about Claire, a seemingly ordinary middle-aged woman, who is driven around the bend by a hum. Maszzoli chose to have Claire and a young student Kyle join a cult of ‘listeners.’ Mazzoli writes beautifully for each human voice. She offers singers lines that range wide yet always seem to suit. Nicole Heaston as Claire brings a rich dramatic soprano to both despair and elation. First-rate singers grace the production, among them Troy Cook as Paul,  tenor Aaron Crouch as Kyle Harris, Claire’s student friend, baritone John Moore as Dillon and the startlingly engaging Lucy Schaufer as Hortense.

The orchestra, conducted by Corrado Rovaris, acts as punctuation, offering periods and exclamation points. There are brief orchestral interludes. Then there is the hum, the noises being heard by townspeople.

The video filming an actor while they are performing and projecting the image to fill half the set brings the audience in a large 19th century opera house up close and personal. This device is used principally in seven confessions. The video doubling, credited to Hannah Waswileski, adds thrilling moments of drama to the production.

The first character we see on stage is a coyote scampering around, perhaps a tip to Leoš Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen. The dancing Coyote and Claire howl together, brushing through the hums.

The conventional domestic scenes between Claire and her husband and daughter are heightened by Claire’s growing anxiety about the noises she hears. Classroom scenes help you feel the world plodding along in the quotidian. The audience laughs at the frequent use of the word ‘fuck’ which acts as a ‘fuck-you’ to more traditional opera.

The cult world does not work as well. Howard, the leader of the cult, lacks charisma. You can’t understand why anyone would be swept up by him. His home in the Jemez Mountains with a Georgia O’Keefe buffalo skull over the fireplace is not helpful. Taos, New Mexico is one of the places that humming has been heard. Yet the southwest has about a two percent black population and the town on the stage is full of black performers. A better choice might be Waco or ‘Anywhere.’

The opera which will be performed in the near future at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, a partner in this venture, and also at the Essen Opera in Germany, is a work in progress. It is fresh, full of energy and musically inventive and engaging.

Susan Hall

The opera received its world premiere in Oslo in the Covid year, 2021.