A Beloved Laureate Goes to the Opera

The first lynching in an opera. The first rape in an opera. Given the traditionally tragic nature of the medium, it seems impossible that Margaret Garner is the first opera to present these incidents on stage. But a quick survey of famous operas shows that Margaret Garner may be the most violent of them all. Puccini’s Tosca would have had a rape, but the heroine stabs her pursuer at the moment. In Mozart’s Don Giovanni, two kibitzing old flames interfere before a rape can transpire. Even Les Miserables doesn’t quite go all the way with a rape scene, although the novel does.

All operas seem light compared to Margaret Garner. The libretto is by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison (Beloved, Sula) and the music is by Richard Danielpour (who is a Grammy Award winner, recipient of Columbia’s Bearns Prize, and faculty member at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Manhattan School of Music). It takes place on the plantation of Edward Gaines in 1850s Kentucky. Margaret Garner made its world premiere at the Cincinnati Opera in 2005 and its New York premiere at the New York City Opera on Sept. 11, 2006.

Most operas are tragic, but with some degree of give-and-take. Tosca and her lover die, but they take the abusive aristocrat with them. Wotan dies at the end of Der Ring des Nibelungen, but he wanted it that way. By contrast, Gaines (played by Timothy Mix) receives punishment only in his conscience for raping Garner (played by Tracie Luck), while she meets a horrific end at the gallows. There is no respite from the grotesque as the story recounts the harrowing true tale of Garner, a slave who stands trial for murdering her children in order to prevent them from returning to slavery. Even worse, because the opera is based on true events, you are left without the comfort that it is “just a story.”

In an interview, Luck offered a perspective on what performing as Garner felt like.0. Luck is a fan of Morrison and has read Modern Medea, the nonfiction account of Garner by Stephen Weisenburger. She said that the opera was woven together out of many different narratives­—that it was not just an opera about the enslaved Garner, but about slavery itself.

The premise brings to mind the politically charged operas of the past­—Verdi and Puccini wrote tragedies about inequality too. Indeed, Verdi’s “Va Pensiero” from Nabucco, sung by a chorus of homesick Hebrews who are exiled in Babylonia, was Italy’s unofficial national anthem during the late-18th-century reunification. Such heartfelt themes make an opera less theatrical and more real.

Interestingly, Margaret Garner may be too real for its audience. Historically, especially fun villains (think: Mephistopheles from Faust, Count Almaviva from The Marriage of Figaro) are applauded vigorously. Mix, as the evil plantation owner Gaines, received applause, but not commensurate with his skill in the part. To his credit, he scared the audience.
The lighting helps him. As he slinks through the shadows, eyeing Garner, he looks inhumanly vicious. And yet, if it takes only one light to turn him from man into goblin, the actor must be doing a convincing impression already.

Simplicity seems to be the watch-word of the production. The set—mostly plain wooden slats—merely hints at the details of the slave quarters, master’s mansion, warehouse, and courthouse. The clothes are essentially period: elegant society dress for the ruling class and coarse work-garments for the slaves. The music is sing-song, folksy, and often organic to the story—lullabies, working-songs, and prayers. Many times, the voice stars alone or against percussion with the instrumentation joining later.

Luck, speaking about the role of music in the life of Garner’s character, said: “She’s a girl from Kentucky escaping to Ohio, so you will hear the lilt of the hills ... It is a very American work that will make you understand the humanity of the people that are being called property.”

With a story as powerful as this one, composer Danielpour, set designer Donald Eastman, and costume designer Merrily Murray-Walsh recognize that the more they draw attention to themselves, the less they allow the natural luster of the script to show.

And yet the script is not natural in the sense of being organic, as it is based on many different stories that were never fitted together before. The opening song consists of a chorus of slaves fronted anachronistically by several well-dressed African dignitaries wearing modern suits and bright sashes. Their lyrics—“No more!”—are ambiguous. The slaves are begging “No more,” while the modern Africans are declaring it as fact. The libretto rhymes meticulously throughout, breaking with modern practice.

Margaret Garner may be based on history, but fantasy also plays a major role in the opera. Much of the drama emerges from an argument on race between Gaines, his daughter Caroline, and Caroline’s husband. Gaines argues that Garner’s slaying of her own children (to keep them out of slavery) is vandalism; Caroline (Maureen McKay) and her husband (Timothy Jackson) counter that for the sake of Garner’s dignity, she should be tried for murder.

It is an interesting debate and one that occupied the press during the trial 150 years ago. Indeed, thanks to this opera, Margaret Garner may take her place next to Dred Scott and Homer Plessy. Still, the fact that not one, but two characters sympathize with the slaves’ plight is as fanciful as an opera about winning the lottery twice—not that “sympathetic” means “understanding.” The pair cluelessly considers it a victory when Margaret is granted clemency and allowed to return to slavery. She prefers hanging.
Luck’s understanding of the title role seemed particularly apt in encapsulating the beauty and horror of the opera: “She’s in a position of vulnerability, but I don’t think she’s weak at all. There’s quite a difference ... There are many women like Margaret Garner who choose to give their spirits up to the Lord ... I think that Margaret’s decision to murder her children was one of those decisions.” A decision that is pivotal to this opera, and one of the many groundbreaking features that Margaret Garner introduces to the medium at large.