<\/p>\n
With his 1977 book, \u201cThe Shining,\u201d Stephen King secured his reputation as a writer in the horror genre and three years later enjoyed the story\u2019s cinematic vision through the lens of director Stanley Kubrick. But another adaptation awaited, and in 2016 composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell presented a theatrical version as part of the Minnesota Opera\u2019s New Works Initiative.<\/p>\n
Now, Opera Tampa raises the curtain on this modern spine-tingler, hoping audiences who have read the book will enjoy its transformation on stage. Performances are Jan. 30 and Feb. 1 at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe music is not your typical 18th or 19th century opera jam, and while it\u2019s a bit strange, it also has beautiful melodies,\u2019\u2019 said Melissa Misener, the company\u2019s artistic administrator and resident stage director. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a stretch for Opera Tampa, as we\u2019ve traditionally stuck with the tried-and-true warhorses. But it will appeal to new audiences because the title and the story are familiar.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
As most of you know, \u201cThe Shining\u201d concerns the Torrance family \u2014 Jack, Wendy and their son Danny \u2014 who vacation at the remote Overlook Hotel in snowy Colorado, where Jack can work on his play. But things don\u2019t go exactly as planned. For inexplicable reasons, Jack suffers a bout of writer\u2019s block and descends into homicidal madness. Danny, who possesses a supernatural awareness recognized by the hotel\u2019s cook, Dick Hallorann, realizes the family\u2019s presence has unearthed something sinister from the past.<\/p>\n
Although the book and opera are fictional, they align with King\u2019s experience in 1974 at the 140-room Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, and the underlying theme of psychosis stems from the author\u2019s battle with alcoholism and drug addiction. King\u2019s family, distraught by his worsening condition, intervened after he wrote \u201cThe Shining.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gritty realism of the book inspired Moravec \u2014 winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music for the Tempest Fantasy \u2014 to keep his opera convincing, and to fuel the action through a musical trajectory. Within this, the characters carry their own signature leitmotivs as the score evolves psychologically.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen creating the music for a character in an opera, I first try to inhabit the particular mind and central nervous system, to try to think and feel what the character is experiencing in the drama,\u2019\u2019 Moravec said. \u201cVery often, the character\u2019s peculiar musical profile, their \u2018sound,\u2019 will emerge from that process. I usually compose at the piano, singing the character\u2019s part, allowing him or her to \u2018sing\u2019 through me.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The most challenging character to represent musically was Jack, as the process required Moravec to descend into a perceived madness along with him. The music moves from tonal to atonal, from comfortable to chaotic, and \u201cas Jack\u2019s mental state disintegrates, so does the musical language.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
After so much agitation, Moravec returns to the Hallorann character, who in the opera\u2019s final aria restores the harmonic balance. All this was not easy. Moravec and Campbell worked on the opera for three years and adhered to the spirit of the book, eschewing the liberties of Kubrick\u2019s film.<\/p>\n
In the opera, Jack is stoic, thoughtful and driven by a code of ethics (before he tries to murder his family). In a poignant scene in Act II, Jack decides to let his family live, and breaks the cane his father used to beat Jack\u2019s mother. Wendy, in contrast to her movie character, is strong and a model of maternal love.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s actually very operatic because it\u2019s about the three things that, in my view, drive opera: love, death, and power,\u2019\u2019 Moravec said. \u201cIt has all three of those elements on steroids. For all of the drama, the action, the horror, the ghosts, the Overlook Hotel, and all these wonderful aspects of the novel, it\u2019s really a very moving story about a family trying to stay together under extraordinary circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most rewarding aspect of composing this work,\u2019\u2019 he added, \u201cis that this is also a deeply moving story of love and redemption \u2014 something that lends itself well to operatic treatment.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The cast includes Robert Westley Mason as Jack; Susan Hellman-Spatafora as Wendy; Ellie Siegler as Danny; and Aubrey Allicock as Hallorann. Rolando Salazar conducts members of The Florida Orchestra.<\/p>\n
Kurt Loft is a journalist and music critic who has written for various newspapers, magazines and arts groups for more than 40 years. A member of the Music Critics Association of North America, he lives in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With his 1977 book, \u201cThe Shining,\u201d Stephen King secured his reputation as a writer in the horror genre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[276,65488,19975,65487,65489,135,137,136,65486],"class_list":{"0":"post-133455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-hillsborough-county","9":"tag-minnesota-opera","10":"tag-opera-tampa","11":"tag-stephen-king","12":"tag-straz-center-for-the-performing-arts","13":"tag-tampa","14":"tag-tampa-headlines","15":"tag-tampa-news","16":"tag-the-shining"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}