John Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, was given its New York premiere at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater last Thursday. New York magazine finds that "Adams is one of the few composers who can count on such well-executed premieres." The New York Times calls it an "enchanting, disturbing and musically intense opera," praising "the richness of the score." The Star-Ledger says the opera's "gifts were abundant" and it "contains some of the composer's most effective vocal writing." The Baltimore Sun says "the opera cast a remarkably strong spell."
John Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, was given its New York premiere at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater last Thursday, with additional performances over the weekend, all part of the 2009 Mostly Mozart festival. Adams, the festival's artist-in-residence, led the Orchestra of St. Luke's, soprano Jessica Rivera (Kumudha), tenor Russell Thomas (the Prince), baritone Sanford Sylvan (Narrator), and the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela each night. (He conducts the International Contemporary Ensemble in an all-Adams program—Shaker Loops, Son of Chamber Symphony, Gnarly Buttons—at Alice Tully Hall tonight.)
A Flowering Tree, featuring a libretto by Adams and his longtime collaborator Peter Sellars, adapted from an Indian folktale, tells a magical tale of transformation, love, betrayal, redemption, and renewal. New York magazine's Justin Davidson, in his review of Thursday's premiere, references the often darker subject matter of earlier Adams/Sellars collaborations, when he writes, "It’s a pleasure to see these two connoisseurs of existential anguish master the art of beguiling an audience."
Successfully weaving together the multitude of multicultural elements the opera's creators assembled to tell this tale, wherein, for instance, "impossibly poised and elastic" Javanese dancers share the stage with a "superb" Venezuelan choir, the composer proves himself well suited to the task, says Davidson: "Adams is an assured composer who hews to the old-fashioned fundamentals of his job: Take a story about undying love and magical obstacles, and put it to lush, romantic song."
The folkloric tale at the opera's core, of the peasant who transforms herself into a flowering tree, says Davidson, is "a premise made for symphonic treatment, and Adams spins out the transformation with tendrils of melody and blooming harmonies in a way that would have earned him a pat on the back from Richard Strauss." The plot turns lead to musical turns as well, leading next to "succulent Wagnerian eroticism" and, then, "giving Adams a chance to display his impressive command of empathy," as he has done in earlier operas like The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic.
Davidson praises the musicians who brought the performance to life and concludes: "Adams is one of the few composers who can count on such well-executed premieres."
Read the complete review at nymag.com.
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The New York Times's Anthony Tommasini, pointing to the opera's magical story and its taking inspiration from Mozart's The Magic Flute, suggests, "It is hard to imagine a work that more belongs in a festival titled Mostly Mozart than this enchanting, disturbing and musically intense opera."
Tommasini, though critical of aspects of the piece, praises "the richness of the score, in which Mr. Adams explores new dimensions of harmonic complexity and multilayered texturing," and finds that "so much of this work is enthralling."
He, like Davidson, finds Adams well suited to the opera's mix of world cultures. "[T]here is something about Mr. Adams’s mix of international idioms here that seems exactly right," he says, "with elements of Indian lore, South American dance, West Coast modernism, scat-singing choruses and even strands evocative of Mozart."
Tommasini, too, praises the orchestra, for giving "an incisive, subtle and lush account of the score under Mr. Adams’s keen and precise direction."
In the powerful culmination of the piece, as the cruelly parted lovers are reunited and wrongs are made right, "Mr. Adams unleashes the entire orchestra and chorus to engulf the couple in ecstatic music, alive with hard-driving rhythms and boldly pungent harmony. The whole final scene builds to this climax with relentless and thrilling inevitability." Tommasini concludes: "As many scenes in this opera show, Mr. Adams has it in him to write with assured dramatic sweep."
Read the review at nytimes.com.
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The Star-Ledger's Ronni Reich describes A Flowering Tree's creators as "some of the most fertile minds in contemporary opera," exclaiming of the opera, "its gifts were abundant" at Thursday's premiere. Reich writes of Adams's score:
The music centers around [Kumudha's] transformations, with fluttering strings, witching hour chimes and delicate, sinuous recorders like thin branches swaying in a breeze. It also contains some of the composer's most effective vocal writing, employing considerable leaps and climactic notes but maintaining a fluid, elegant line.
There's more at nj.com.
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The Baltimore Sun's classical music critic, Tim Smith, writing in "Clef Notes," his Sun blog, echoes that sentiment. "From the first shimmering orchestral notes to the final burst of radiance, the score reveals layers of intricate nuance," he writes. "The vocal writing has an often exquisite clarity that recalls Britten’s sensitivity to text." After praising the performers, Smith concludes that "the opera cast a remarkably strong spell." That review is at weblogs.baltimoresun.com.
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For more on tonight's performance featuring the International Contemporary Ensemble, visit new.lincolncenter.org.
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