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The Metropolitan Opera
The Great Gatsby
opera by John Harbison
January 12, 2000
Review by Andrew Yarrows
 
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And now, finally, I come to the third and final show of this multi-performance review, John Harbison’s brand new opera The Great Gatsby at the Metropolitan Opera. I had been looking forward to this work with great enthusiasm since it was announced years ago, only to have almost every expectation dashed within the first 90 minutes of the performance which, I should add, is all that I stuck around for. That’s right, I walked out. Mind you, the opera wasn’t hideously boring, bland or outrageously misconceived and just plain bad (although it certainly came dangerously close to all of the above), it was, rather, just very disappointing and thus not something that made me want to sit through two additional acts. Gatsby had its chance and it didn’t cut it. Does that make me a bad reviewer? Probably. But even I have limits, and a choice between two more hours of listless squirming in my seat and the comfort of a good night’s sleep was an entirely too easy one under the circumstances.
Out of fairness, I am only rating Gatsby based on what I saw, which I hereby acknowledge is unfair of me to do. But what the hell, I’m doing it anyway. As if you expected more of me!
The opera opens with an interminably long sequence in which the characters of Nick, Jordan, Tom and Daisy lounge about on the front lawn of Tom’s suburban mansion, talking amongst themselves and setting up the story, which ought to be familiar enough to everyone so that I don’t have to go into it here. In fact, let me just cut to the quick… Nick (played adequately by Dwayne Croft) isn’t used here as the story’s narrator, bringing the audience to the events on stage in the form of a flashback, as he does in the Fitzgerald novel. He is, instead, just one of several prominent characters in what has been transformed into an entirely conventional, real time, linear sequence of events. In other words, the whole structure of the book has been cast aside resulting in a total loss of dramatic impact and intensity. All we are left with is boring melodrama.
The performances are another story and, once again, it’s not a very pleasant one to tell. While I am by no means a connoisseur of operatic vocals, I would venture to say that there’s nothing very spectacular going on in terms of expressive singing with any of the leads, perhaps excepting the occasionally wonderful Dawn Upshaw (in the role of Daisy). Most everyone seems stiff in their respective roles, even somewhat bored. And based on the score they’ve been given I would guess that I’m not far off the mark in saying that. Jerry Hadley, as the title character, is particularly wooden. Then again, the over all atmosphere of the opera is one of subdued malaise, which I’m not certain is the best way to go about a musicalization of Gatsby.
Speaking of that, Harbison’s score is a bland, melodically void epic full of indistinct, unemotional arias and a deluge of numbing, seemingly endless recitative dialogue sequences which not only bores the listener but also prevents the score from ever taking off or sustaining any dramatic excitement. Few melodic threads are carried to a satisfying completion, and the fragments of above average music that we get are so miniscule and infrequent that they are ultimately inconsequential, lost within a sea of melodic mediocrity. The greatest material, found during a party scene and heard over a radio broadcast in Act One, is unfortunately fuel for our ultimate disappointment. This particular music is lavish and fun, jazzy and fresh, directly modeled after 1920s pop tunes, with convincing lyrics appropriate to the style of the period (written by a different lyricist than Harbison, who is responsible for everything else). The party scene entails lively Charleston dancing and Broadway-style music that, while I am obviously partial to that style, is truly the best material in the score. It’s disappointing to see that Harbison did not recognize this himself. It could have been a truly wonderful musicalization of Gatsby if he had.
The sets were ample, occasionally quite lovely, but ultimately unable to withstand the uninspired direction by, which obviously followed Harbison’s cue and decided to amplify the absolute weakest links of the novel rather than exploiting its many narrative strengths. From all angles, Harbison’s Gatsby is a raging bore. Indeed, the only exciting occurrence in the Metropolitan Opera House on January 12th was my emergence into the cool night air at the conclusion of Act One and subsequent getaway across the Lincoln Center concourse.
I do hope you’ve enjoyed my three-pronged review. It wasn’t easy enduring two nights of bad theatre, but I toughed it out (well, for the most part) and have done my best to report back. Just stay clear of everything reviewed here except for James Joyce’s The Dead, as it was the only show of the three reviewed here that, bearing in mind its title, wasn’t.
-------Andy
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