Stefan Cohen

There is no such thing as a perfect assimilation; it is hard for newcomers to “blend in.” Trust me, I know. In the seventeen years I’ve been in this country, I’ve been called all names. (Including everybody’s seemingly favorite catchphrase, “Go back to your country!”). No wonder László Tóth tearfully bawled, “They don’t want us here!” in Brady Corbet’s excellent The Brutalist, a pain every single immigrant feels at least once in their new lives. On the other hand, it isn’t a simple task for locals to “accept” “the others,” especially when they look, feel, and think differently. After all, we are all raised with the specific order: “Never talk to strangers!”

The dichotomy of assimilation – among other things – was brilliantly explored in the new opera by composer David Hanlon and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann titled The Pigeon Keeper, which received its world premiere in an exquisite production by Opera Parallèle at the intimate Cowell Theater on Friday, March 7. The Pigeon Keeper was one of the four new works commissioned through Opera for All Voices: Stories of Our Time (OFAV) initiative, a consortium of opera companies led by The Santa Fe Opera to create new operatic works for audiences of all ages that are flexible in both scope and scale and can be performed in a variety of venues. Opera Parallèle and Opera Omaha co-commissioned the work, and the production was shared with Opera Omaha and Opera on the Avalon, Newfoundland.

Fleischmann’s libretto itself received a 2019 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Another critical aspect of the opera’s development was the collaboration between OFAV and the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD) OperaLab to produce the Sitzprobe/Orchestration Workshop under guest conductor Kelly Kuo‘s direction almost a year ago. It was extremely heartening for me to learn about such efforts from contemporary opera composers. I hope it will happen more in the future and with other composers, as it provides invaluable insights to music students!

Now in its fifteenth year, Opera Parallèle – led by Artistic Director and Conductor Nicole Paiement and Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel, who respectively served as conductor and director of this production– continues its mission of working in “parallel” (hence the name) with organizations and artists in its community, which is “essential for the survival of opera as a living art form.” For The Pigeon Keeper, Opera Parallèle collaborated with the San Francisco Girls Chorus and ARTogether, an Oakland-based art organization providing a safe space for refugees and immigrants, which supplied art exhibits and an art market in the lobby before each show.

Billed as “a modern fable of kindness in a fractured world,” the opera packed a lot of punches in its concise, intermission-less 75-minute duration. Set on an imaginary island in the Mediterranean, the story revolves around Orsia, a 12-year-old girl who lives on that island with her down-on-his-luck fisherman father, Thalasso. The island has received many refugees recently, including the mysterious Pigeon Keeper, the village’s outcast. Seven years prior, Orsia’s mom, Philomena, died giving birth to her stillborn baby brother, Kosmo.

On the anniversary of her death, Orsia and Thalasso are out fishing when they encounter a silent boy around the same age as Kosmo would have been. The grieving Orsia wants to keep him, but Thalasso won’t allow it (for obvious reasons) and gives Orsia three days to find his parents or someone to take him in. So, Orsia sets off on her quest with the boy to find him a home, perhaps his voice, and perhaps even the key to healing her own broken family. A key thematic link of the opera is that both the Pigeon Keeper and Philomena (and eventually, the boy as well) are well-versed in the songs of the birds, a fact that seems to suggest that all of them came from the same tribe/location!

Stefan Cohen

Besides assimilation, the fable—or, as Staufenbiel called it, “magical realism”—explores the themes of a broken family torn by tragedy, acceptance, bullying, and poverty (one of the main reasons why the villagers can’t accommodate the boy). But above all, the theme of kindness prevails throughout the opera. Orsia’s kindness in finding the boy, whom she calls Kosmo, a home sets the ball rolling; the Pigeon Keeper’s kindness in teaching the boy enables him to find his voice; and finally, the boy’s kindness heals a family in mourning. The three become the catalysts of change by being kind and true to themselves, a fact that I truly loved and appreciated from the show. Even better, the message was delivered gently and subtly, wrapped in a fully coherent story that felt authentic and sincere! I personally admired that the boy found a family not by adopting the village identity but by embracing his true self!

There was a lot of joy to be had with Hanlon’s music, which, with minimal forces (eight people to be exact, five strings with flute/piccolo, clarinet, and percussions), conjures the sounds and rhythm of the island. Hanlon marries the Mediterranean influences (with a heavy emphasis on the Mediterranean (Darbuka drum and the flute) with the sensibility of Western tonalities, creating a score of exceptional beauty that felt pertinent and current. The fable may live in the magical realm, but the issues definitely live in the present!

The writing for the girls’ chorus was particularly gorgeous, at times haunting, at other times mysterious and ethereal. Rather than serving as a Greek chorus, they represented the natural elements of the fable, from the song of the birds to the waves of the ocean. Only during the school scene did they turn into humans, cruelly teasing and abusing the silent boy. The seventeen San Francisco Girls Chorus members, led by Valérie Sainte-Agathe, rose to the occasion, bringing a sense of innocence and charm to the proceedings. They performed the many parts – plus acting on stage and serving as stage crew – with dedication and excitement. During the pre-performance talk, Hanlon and Fleischmann indicated that the chorus part could also be sung by a women’s chorus, but after watching this performance, I just couldn’t imagine it so!

Stefan Cohen

Staunfenbiel assembled a talented crew to bring the fable to life. Jacquelyn Scott’s static sets consisted of two two-story buildings placed on the left and right, with various “windows” of different sizes where the chorus girls appeared from time to time. Actions happened before those sets, with props brought in and out efficiently. A small boat, reminiscent of the recent Broadway musical Swept Away, was brought in for the sea scene, maneuvered above a sea of blue clothes held by the girls to resemble ocean waves. They added an other-worldly feel to the whole show.

Even more impressive was Jessica Drayton’s magical lighting and projections on those two-story buildings, converting them into anything from the sky to the sea, from a hyper-realistic fishing village in the Mediterranean Sea with its washed-out sepia colors to silhouettes of a flock of birds flying above! The lighting and the projections were also perfectly timed to synchronize with the music and the scene changes, giving the production almost a storybook feel.

Sharon Peng dressed the actors in simple yet colorful fishermen/women’s clothes, except for the Pigeon Keeper (and the Widow Grocer and the Schoolteacher, all of which were performed by tenor Bernard Holcomb), whose exotic appearances probably signified his “otherness.” Thought I have to say, the combination of a hyper-realistic fishing village and actors in fishermen’s clothes sometimes made me forget that I was actually watching a fable instead of a real-life story! Nevertheless, it was a very well-choreographed and well-rehearsed production, showing how much thought was poured into presenting this opera. The Pigeon Keeper was indeed a revelation on the musical front as well. Paiement led the Orchestra in an intelligent and sensitive reading, bringing out all the colors and nuances of Hanlon’s music and Fleischmann’s lyrics while lovingly shaping its scenes with a precise and dreamlike quality. She chose a well-judged pace, never rushed or too slow, making full use of all eight musicians. In fact, I was amazed at how large the orchestra sounded; I did not feel like listening to an octet at all!

Stefan Cohen

The four soloists were exceptionally well chosen for this production, and they all contributed significantly to the opera’s success with their craft and dedication. As Orsia, soprano Angela Yam brought clarity and poise in her bright lyrical voice, believably sounding like a precocious 12-year-old. Hanlon wrote a punishingly high tessitura for Orsia which Yam performed with aplomb. Her reading was also full of nuances, trading joy, excitement, sadness, loneliness, and despair in equal measure. As a bonus, she did look like a 12-year-old, at least from where I sat!

On the opposite side of the spectrum, baritone Craig Irvin imbued his resonant baritone with world-weariness, faultlessly depicting a lost, grieving man. His many scenes with Yam were truly heartbreaking, as Thalasso didn’t know what to do with his daughter anymore. Irvin conveyed that beautifully both in his voice and his actions, and his sheer joy at the end was palpable and genuine, giving his character a beautiful arc.

As mentioned above, Holcomb portrayed three characters in the opera: the title rome, Widow Grocer, and Schoolteacher. In the program notes, Fleischmann explained that it was done to “[hold] within one body the full range of human responses to those in need.” Impressively, Holcomb – who also workshopped the roles in the Sitzprobe last year – turned in a chameleon-like performance, singing each character differently: mysterious and lyrical as the Pigeon Keeper, weary and hushed as the Widow Grocer, and irritating and self-absorbed as the Schoolteacher.

Stefan Cohen

Those personifications were truly meaningful to the story, and Holcomb excelled tremendously with each character. He even differentiated how he acted for each character (not to mention that Pang designed completely different costumes for each as well), so much so that many in the audience thought the roles were performed by different singers!

Last but certainly not least, Shayla Sauvie impressed as the ‘silent’ boy (aka Kosmo). A member of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, the eighth-grader made quite a transformation, totally believable as a boy. (I thought she was a boy until I saw the program notes!) Sauvie also brought a sense of innocence when singing the birds’ song. I only wished she was mic’ed for the final scene where she was leading, as, unfortunately, she got drowned a bit by the orchestra and everybody else on stage.

Needless to say, I cried pretty much the whole opera as the subjects were dear to my heart. Fleischmann noted that the opera was inspired by the 2016 news story of a group of migrants passing through a Greek village, overwhelming the town, and eventually getting thrown away. Unfortunately, with all the uncertainties around us, this narrative isn’t going away anytime soon. I genuinely applaud Opera Parallèle and everyone involved for providing such a relevant and timely fable in such a heartfelt and exceptional way and for delivering such deep food for thought. I wish more people would experience this opera in the future, as the message of kindness is truly needed in this seemingly cruel world. For future The Pigeon Keeper producers, please keep it intimate and don’t let the message get lost in the process!