Stephen Paulus' The Woman at Otowi Crossing, a world premiere at Opera Theatre of St. Louis Stephen Paulus' The Woman at Otowi Crossing, a world premiere at Opera Theatre of St. Louis This year, the new kid on the block is the world premiere of The Woman at Otowi Crossing, with music by Stephen Paulus (who composed two earlier works for OTSL) and a libretto by playwright and filmmaker Joan Vail Thorne, based on the novel of the same name by Frank Waters. I wouldn't call this one a crashing failure, exactly, but attempting to translate the novel to the operatic stage has resulted in a dramatically un-involving hash of soap-opera-style melodrama and goopy New Ageism.
The story is loosely based on that of a real person, Edith Warner, who lived at Otowi Crossing in New Mexico from 1928 to 1951, and whose tea room at the old railway depot served as a sort of bridge between the old Native American culture and the US government installation at Los Alamos, where the atom bomb was developed. In both the novel and the opera, Warner becomes the fictional Helen Chalmers. She is, we are told, both a woman of great warmth and compassion, who generates tremendous love in everyone she touches, and a sort of mystical seer, who envisions the awful power of the fruits of the Manhattan Project, and the way it will forever change the world.
That's what we're told. It isn't, unfortunately, what we're shown in Thorne's rather heavy-handed and repetitious libretto. To me, at least, Chalmers came across as a confused, deluded, and ultimately somewhat self-destructive character whose motivations are obscure and whose personal philosophy is a murky mix of pan-theism and ecological awareness. Worse yet, she is surrounded by secondary characters - such as her long-suffering lover Jack Turner, her daughter Emily, and her enigmatic Indian friend Tilano - whose actions are equally unmotivated, and who seem to be present only to provide more melodramatic pain and trauma. And to top it off, the libretto delivers it's message about the inter-connectedness of all life in such a simplistic and obvious fashion that I found myself in the odd position of being actively annoyed by the expression of sentiments with which I strongly agree.
Paulus' music doesn't add anything to this mess, unfortunately. It's melodically undistinguished and achieves most of its dramatic effects by sheer volume. It also seems curiously irrelevant - as if this entire business would have been better presented as a play with incidental music rather than an opera.
On the positive side, Paulus has some very fine singers to deliver his notes. As Helen Chalmers, soprano Sheri Greenawald once again demonstrates her great skill as singer and actress; it's a pity she hasn't been given better material to work with. Bass-baritone Andrew Wentzel is properly imposing and mysterious as Tilano, and baritone Kimm Julian does a fine job with the rather one-dimensional role of Jack Turner. I was also impressed with Richard Troxell and the young scientist Joel Edmund and Christine Abraham as Helen's daughter Emily. Richard Buckley conducts the Opera Theatre orchestra with a sure hand, and Cary John Franklin's chorus once again impressed me with it's precision and power.
For me, I guess, the most frustrating thing about The Woman at Otowi Crossing is that the opera's basic message about the continuity of all life and the divinity that is inherent in all of us is one with which I am very much in sympathy. I only wish it had been presented in a less obvious and more dramatically compelling fashion. Chalk this one up to the failure of good intentions, I suppose.
The Woman at Otowi Crossing continues in rotating repertory through June 23rd at the Loretto Hilton Center in Webster Groves. Call 314-961-0644 for ticket information.