Lullaby as Lament

I will fly like a bird – Thompson Street Opera Company

Beginning in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2013, and thriving in Chicago since 2016, the Thompson Street Opera Company continually presents the works of living composers at the highest level of the storefront opera scene. Their season opener this year is no exception. Canadian composer John Plant, with librettist J.A. Wainwright, has created a tone poem of intense feelings of anticipatory joy and poignant sadness around the horror that we see on our television and computer screens every day: Immigrants and the welcoming of refugees gone terribly awry. Skillfully lead by conductor Alexandra Enyart, the orchestra of four strings, piano, and clarinet created not only the textual moments, but the swirls of deep feeling that would carry the stories arc to the next moment where the poetry caught up with the journeys.

On October 14, 2007, Robert Dziekański was tasered to death by the police at the Vancouver National Airport. A refugee from Poland, Robert was entering the country via a legal passport, to join his mother, Zofia Cisowski. Robert had never flown before and did not speak English. His plane landed, he was able to receive some help at the beginning of his journey through customs, but at some point, everything went awry. Robert was lost in the airport and his mother, who was waiting to collect her son, was told he must have missed his flight and she should go home. Alone, hungry, frightened, and unable to communicate with anyone, Richard expressed his anger with antisocial behavior, but harmed no one. The police were called, Richard was handcuffed and pinned, while being tasered. A police coverup was eventually unearthed with evidence collected by bystanders using a camera and a cellphone.

These are the bare facts, the story that is told, with more or fewer details, and continues to live on in debates over the proper use of non-lethal weaponry and appropriate law enforcement protocols. This is another of those story, words on the page and pictures on the screen that follow in today’s news, one after the next, until they less than astonishing, until the outcry of the citizenry is muffled in unsurprised expectations and we grow numb. We cannot move. Our humanity is suspended by the mind’s desire to calm our senses, to bring the nervous system to a level that will not disturb the heart.

But we must not allow this. If we are to citizens of the earth, if we are sufficiently evolved to understand that “we” always have been and forever will be “us,” we must eschew the mind’s preventative strike, and connect. I Will Fly Like A Bird is an answer to this dilemma. Presented with fewer facts, but with all the feelings. Author Wainwright constructed what sounded more like a “song cycle” to him, rather than a play or poem, and Plant stepped in to answer that call.

On opening night I was pleased to hear baritone Nathaniel Hill as Robert and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Barrett as Zofia. Hill’s connection to the character was evident in both his singing and his acting. Every word of the text was clear, and the voice answered the sweeping emotions the incapsulated plot necessitated. Barrett’s warm stage presence allowed the audience to connect with her immediately, an imperative as Zofia is the audience’s way into that airport. With a voice as plummy as her diction is sharp, Barrett gave generously to the score and to the character.

Director Ross Kyo Matsuda guided his players through the smaller arcs in the story, to the largest peak of the drama, and then to the grieving postlude, sung on “Ah,” something crying out in anguish yet a folksong-like lullaby at the same time, a moment where Barrett left the audience breathless, stopped in connection, steeped in emotion that needed no words. Matsuda used the small space very effectively, managing to create a jangled journey through the airport for Robert with sudden entrances and exits. The stage was often left empty of the characters, save that of the orchestra, throbbing without words but conveying every intricate passion. Knowing when to step away and let an audience sit with their feelings is the sign of a terrific director, for it suggests a release of control that must be maintained most of the time to tell the story. Matsuda was not afraid to let his bird fly, and the audience was the recipient of his largess.

The prelude to the opera was orchestra’s offering of Penderecki’s Clarinet Quartet or Quartet for Clarinet and String Trio. The Penderecki was an excellent choice to accompany the Plant. As was the case in the opera, the piece opened in short, then growing phrases for solo clarinet, a hesitant phrase, a reach further with slightly more confidence, asking the question that hung in the air, and then the conversation with the other players began. Clarinetist Lila Olsen’s skill and heart added much to the evening. With a solid breath support and a wonderful sense of pitch, imperatives when playing the “queen” of the woodwind choir, Olsen’s every entrance was both studied and spontaneous. Enyart led the quartet through the piece with great aplomb. Always a terrific talent and a sensitive musician, Enyart’s art becomes more burnished with every outing. She is freer in her body than ever, and her invitations to the players at entrance points even clearer and more specific of tone. Chicago must follow and celebrate the career of this young conductor, and selfishly hope her burgeoning talent does not take her to other climes anytime soon.     

Baritone Jonathan Wilson and mezzo-soprano Marissa Simmons sang the roles in alternating performances.

Art is not always sunny. Art is not always entertainment. Art, if used correctly, is a schoolhouse. Art, in its highest form, is a conversation. Thompson Street Opera Company is always inviting audiences for a chat. Answer that call.