Few American novels want to be an opera as much as “The Scarlet Letter.” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale of adultery and redemption serves up a love triangle worthy of Puccini, and just the sort of doomed and determined heroine Verdi might transform into a spine-tingling soprano. Wagner could make magic from its tragic kind of climax.
Yet, few operas have had as difficult a transition from page to stage as composer Lori Laitman’s version of the well-known tale, set to receive its highly anticipated professional premiere at Opera Colorado on Saturday.
The piece has been started, stopped, workshopped, abridged, lengthened and reorchestrated — twice. Just last week, 400 measures were cut from the ending to fine-tune its dramatic appeal.
“The Scarlet Letter” has endured all of the beauty and pain of making new work in today’s competitive opera climate, and then some. So much is at stake with an untested creation — a company’s finances, a composer’s reputation, everyone’s singing career — and getting things wrong can be a catastrophe.
Getting them right, though, is a major accomplishment, and a test that opera companies now are expected to pass. Opera Colorado believes it has done just that, readying the first premiere in the company’s 35-year history and giving its city an accessible, melodic work of art with broad appeal.
“This is not just about us,” said general directo r Greg Carpenter. “It’s about the whole community.”
It almost didn’t happen, of course. The opera was announced for the company’s 2012-13 season, and a marketing campaign was in full swing. Mailings went out and banners were flying downtown.
It came crashing down unexpectedly when the company, feeling the effects a bad economy, fell into the red and pulled the title from its schedule, part of a string of cutbacks and layoffs.
Opera Colorado spent the next three years putting itself back together. When it returned, it brought “The Scarlet Letter” with it.
A long history
“The Scarlet Letter” was first conceived as an opera in 2007, when Laitman, then building a career as a respected composer of art songs, was asked by the University of Central Arkansas to write her first full-length opera. She seized the opportunity even though she only had a few weeks to pick her title.
She said she “ran out to Barnes & Noble that night,” picking up a dozen classic pieces of literature, including “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “The Time Machine” and “Fahrenheit 451.”
But it was Hawthorne’s 1850 fable of Hester Prynne, who bore a child out of wedlock in Puritan New England and was forced to bare a capital “A” for her adulterous sin, that stood out.
Laitman could see her opera in the first few pages where the novel has Hester standing on the village scaffold facing an accusing crowd. Her estranged husband, Roger Chillingworth, is there, as is Arthur Dimmesdale, the preacher who is eventually revealed to be the baby’s father.
Laitman’s librettist David Mason, saw it there, too: his first chorus scene. “Right from the start, with Hester being isolated from the community and being shamed and condemned, you have represented one of the first great heroines in all of American literature, and she is a knockout — beautiful, smart, witty, and she has absolute integrity.”
Since the novel is in the public domain, they set about things quickly. Mason, the former poet laureate of Colorado, broke the story into six scenes and began reinterpreting the characters through dialogue.
“The prose is difficult. You can’t sing Hawthorne, so I had to invent a whole new idiom,” said Mason.
Laitman worked in narrative order, building the musical drama by giving each aspect of the story a particular sound. She wrote simple, rigid lines for the chorus to emphasize the town’s moral inflexibility. Hester’s inner strength was underscored through simple and straightforward melodies, but with uneven phrases to show her individuality. Pearl, the child, was represented with a light, skipping theme.
“I want to create drama for the audience. I want them to be gripped,” said Laitman. “And I want them to be in awe of what’s happening vocally.”
Central Arkansas staged a student production, which was recorded, giving Laitman a tool for selling her work to professional companies.
Connections
The composer soon found an ally in Beth Greenberg, a busy stage director known best for her success with the New York City Opera and who came across the demo in 2009.
“I listened to it for just about a minute and called her immediately,” said Greenberg, who helms the current production. “It just completely blew me away.”
The director worked her contacts, sending the recording out far and wide, eventually passing it on to Opera Colorado at a music conference the next spring. The company was looking to present something beyond the standard repertoire of Mozart and Bizet but hoped to ease audiences gently into the idea of new works.
Carpenter wanted a familiar story that his customers could relate to. “The other aspect was that, musically, it had to be accessible, something that would maybe challenge a little bit but would not be so jarring that they wouldn’t embrace it. “
“The Scarlet Letter,” with its sweeping melodies and colorful language, had it all. The company worked out the details, slotted it in and began selling tickets.
Then things came tumbling down.
Carpenter said informing Laitman of the postponement “was the hardest phone call I’ve made in my life.”
Better late
Laitman used the next three years to reimagine her piece. By then, the composer had more songs and another full dramatic work under her belt — a children’s opera written with the poet Dana Gioia. Laitman’s muse was in full swing.
“Something had happened in my brain, a switch flipped. Instead of being a little bit terrified, I really felt I knew what I was doing,” she said.
She spent an entire year in her basement studio recreating sections of the piece, including every chorus. She switched around parts and moved about musical lines. With input from Ari Pelto, Opera Colorado’s musical director and primary conductor, she added instruments that would fill out any potential sound quirks in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House — an extra flute, English horn, bassoon, oboe and more. She believed her opera was good, but she was driven to make it flawless.
All that work has led up to the past five weeks in Denver, as the writers, singers, scenic designers, musicians and directors have come together in rehearsals. Operas take years to write, finance and cast, but they can’t be completed until the sopranos and tenors stand together in their respective places and sing the notes, and everyone gets to hear them for real.
Then the final revisions start. The baritone part was raised an octave to match the considerable talent of Malcolm MacKenzie, who sings Chillingworth. Soprano Laura Claycomb, a late substitution in the role of Hester, is known for her high notes, and Laitman happily supplied more of them. Lyrics were tightened, and the final moments were condensed after everyone agreed that the lengthy epilogue Hawthorne had attached to his story was out of place on stage.
“There are 25,000 measures in the piece, and we went through every one of them,” said Pelto.
The opera’s creators believe their original visions for “The Scarlet Letter” have survived, and they’re content with its evolution. It remains true to Hawthorne, they say, but plays up themes today’s audiences can relate to, especially the liberated fortitude of Hester, “America’s first great feminist,” as Greenberg puts it.
A decade into the work, Laitman is confident. The delays made it a better opera, she said, and she can’t wait for the world to hear her Hester. “People are going to go wild when she sings the high notes.”
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or @rayrinaldi
THE SCARLET LETTER Opera Colorado presents the professional premiere of composer Lori Laitman’s opera, based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel. Saturday, and May 10, 13 and 15. Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Complex. $20-$160. 303-468-2030 or operacolorado.org.
