\u201cI was actually very impressed by the way that Joan was able to transform certain details from the story \u2026 in a way that actually made the story more operatic,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I approached the idea of us possibly collaborating on something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight there [and] then at Merkin Hall,\u201d Ross Sorkin added during a group video interview with Karchin. \u201cLou came up to me and said, \u2018Gee, you know, I appreciated the work, and let\u2019s think about doing something together.\u2019 So it happened that night.\u201d<\/p>\n
The journey has led them to a one-act opera that runs 45 minutes total, with a planned orchestration for 11 musicians. And while \u201cThe Reef\u201d transported its source material to a new setting, \u201cRoman Fever\u201d hews close to its source material.<\/p>\n
As in the story, New Yorkers Alida and Grace perch in a Roman cafe to trade reminiscences, then secrets, then barbs, as their longstanding polite rivalry becomes irreparably ruptured.<\/p>\n
Alida reveals that she once penned a letter, ostensibly from her beau Delphin, to lure Grace into a would-be midnight tryst and, thereafter, embarrassment at being jilted. Grace counters that the rendezvous did in fact take place after she wrote back to the real Delphin, accepting Alida\u2019s faux invitation.<\/p>\n
Salvaging what she can, Alida rubbishes the importance of one night with Delphin, noting it was she who got to marry him. But Grace isn\u2019t finished: that one night gave her a daughter, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny time you\u2019re adapting, you want to always keep to the core of what are the themes of that underlying author,\u201d Ross Sorkin said. \u201cWe just loved her story, and so I really embraced it. And all the elements of her store are really in the opera.\u201d<\/p>\n
The libretto departs most in its relegation of the two women\u2019s own daughters to offstage presences (and, eagle-eyed Whartonites will note, in shortening the time since their last visit by 3 years). The result is an uninterrupted look at the two main characters that Karchin, composing his third opera, was only too happy to score.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an accumulation of tension throughout the short story,\u201d he said. \u201cIt becomes an interesting compositional challenge: how to keep the attention of the listener by steadily introducing elements which will increase the intensity of the music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karchin said he utilized an increasing pace as the feud deepens, and a dissonant, strident edge \u201cthat becomes more and more evident as the work goes on, and \u2026 ends on a pretty marked question mark.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also decided to write both roles for sopranos, finding differences not in range but in vocal weight and color, usually categorized under the German Fach system.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlida, who is more the domineering character, and also the less-good character, the more scheming character, \u2026 should be represented by somebody with a heavier, darker voice,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd Grace, who, at least outwardly, is the purer character, would have a lighter soprano voice, more of a coloratura role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, he said, finding separation \u201cactually is the challenge.\u201d At times, he leaned into the vocal closeness as the women compared themselves \u2014 when and whom they married; when they moved to Park Avenue and where on it; who did what first, and who better.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a great place to actually try to combine the voices together into a very narrow range and to try to create a sense of [them] trying to one-up each other,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes you actually blend them together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Natalie Johnsonius Neubert<\/a>, a Mount board member who moderated the post-show discussion with Ross-Sorkin and Karchin at Grace Church, told The Eagle beforehand she was excited to hear the opera.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really interested in adaptations that really bring kind of timeless pieces \u2026 to modern audiences,\u201d said Johnsonius Neubert, also president and CEO of Berkshire Opera Festival<\/a>. \u201cYou get people who wouldn\u2019t necessarily sit down and read a short story, but they would come to the opera.\u201d<\/p>\n That public outreach, beyond the direct literary mission, is \u201cthe most important part of The Mount,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n For the organization itself, that\u2019s part of the plan\u00a0\u2014 right down to partnering with Grace Church, a location in \u201cThe Age of Innocence\u201d where Wharton was baptized.<\/p>\n \u201cBy engaging new audiences, \u2026 we strengthen Wharton\u2019s legacy and illuminate the continued relevance of her work,\u201d Sarah Margolis-Pineo, the organization\u2019s director of programs, wrote in an email. \u201cPresenting \u2018Roman Fever\u2019 in New York allows The Mount to extend beyond our physical setting and affirm that her legacy is not confined to Lenox.\u201d<\/p>\n Ross Sorkin and Karchin visited the Berkshire home, where Wharton lived from 1902 to 1911, and the composer knows this region well: A Tanglewood alumnus who studied there under Gunther Schuller, he later conducted his chamber symphony at Seiji Ozawa Hall<\/a> in 2011.<\/p>\n Karchin wasn\u2019t sure the landscape influenced the Rome-set opera, but \u201cit may have reinforced my appreciation of Edith Wharton,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can just listen to the birds, listen to the sounds of being out there,\u201d Ross Sorkin said. \u201cI think for any writer, [and] she wrote a lot of stuff there, it\u2019s just inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n The “Roman Fever” creative team includes, from left, soprano Sofia Scattarreggia (Alida), conductor and accompanist Luke Poeppel, librettist Joan Ross Sorkin, composer Louis Karchin and soprano Kerrigan Bigelow (Grace).<\/p>\n LOUIS KARCHIN<\/p>\n The fruit of that inspiration, at least some of it, was brought to life in New York last month by singers Kerrigan Bigelow as Grace and Sofia Scattarreggia as Alida. They were accompanied by Luke Poeppel, a pianist and conductor who last year led outdoor performances of \u201cIn A Grove\u201d<\/a> at Opera Saratoga<\/a>.<\/p>\n This fall, after a journey back up Broadway, \u201cRoman Fever\u201d will really come full circle, with a full concert premiere at Merkin Hall, where the idea first germinated.<\/p>\n Scattarreggia will return opposite newcomer Jennifer Zetlan, and the chamber orchestra of Washington Square Ensemble will offer a sized-up score.<\/p>\n Karchin and Ross Sorkin plan to be there, too. No word yet on what opera they\u2019ll think up afterward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LENOX \u2014 There\u2019s a lot to glean from Edith Wharton\u2019s \u201cRoman Fever,\u201d a 1934 short story getting new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[87408,87409,75,84,83,9,24,63,18639,87407,87410],"class_list":["post-222121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-edith-wharton","tag-joan-ross-sorkin","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-opera","tag-roman-fever","tag-the-mount"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n