What happens when an opera mover and shaker like University of Maryland Opera Studio Director Leon Major 
Photo Credit: Stan Barouh
meets with an all-embracing art museum official like National Gallery of Art Deputy Director Alan Shestack? The birth of an ekphrastic opera—Later the Same Evening: an opera inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper by composer John Musto and librettist Mark Campbell. The art-on-art opera will premiere at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center November 15 through 18, 2007 in conjunction with the three-city (Boston, Washington, Chicago) exhibition of Edward Hopper’s work running September 16, 2007, through January 21, 2008 at DC’s NGA. One performance of the opera will occur December 2 at the National Gallery.
WHAT FARE FOR NIGHTHAWKS?
The Dresser was pleased to be invited June 19 to the press breakfast announcing this new operatic work. Although she was a bit shocked at the 1950s diner menu of hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, and frothy milkshakes conjuring up 
Photo Credit: Karren Alenier
Hopper’s renown oil icon Nighthawks, she was excited to hear soprano Claire Kuttler sing an aria inspired by Hopper’s 1931 oil Hotel Room and enjoy the four-hand piano accompaniment played by pianist Jeffery Watson and composer John Musto.
Photo Credit: Karren Alenier
If this tonal aria full of youthful angst and whimsy accented by broken chords that tip toe across the keyboard is indicative of the whole opera, the Dresser believes audiences will be moved and enlightened about Hopper’s work which often makes viewers guess about his intentions.
The way this collaboration between the University of Maryland and the National Gallery of Art happened is that Major, who knew about the music programs at the NGA, met with Shestack to suggest a event using outstanding student singers from Maryland’s School of Music. When Shestack mentioned the Hopper exhibition, a bell went off in Major’s head. Major remembered that Mark Campbell had written
Photo Credit: Alex Beauchesne
a 10-minute pieceinspired by the art of Edward Hopper. Although Later the Same Evening sprung largely from Major’s suggestions and had nothing to do with Campbell’s earlier work, what Campbell created initially inspired by Hopper opened the door for him and for John Musto.
THE FOX VERSUS THE HOPPERA
Campbell and Musto had already worked with Major who directed their opera Volpone [translates as The Fox], which was commissioned by Wolf Trap Foundation and then premiered in March 2004 by the Wolf Trap Opera Company. A second production of this comic opera occurs June 22 to July 1, 2007, for four performances at the Barnes of Wolf Trap Farm.
At the news conference, the Dresser spoke to Campbell who said while Volpone emphasizes comedy, Later the Same Evening delves into the emotional load of Hopper’s landscape—solitude, loneliness, life in the big city. (The traveling Hopper exhibition focuses on the artist’s most reknown works created from 1925 to mid century.) The composer, librettist, and director of the Hopper opera, which Alan Shestack affectionately calls the Hoppera, emphasize that their goal is to make popular entertainment. Leon Major said that the highbrow label for opera belongs to the 19th century.
Hearing this statement about opera as popular entertainment, the Dresser better understands Campbell and Musto’s approach to Volpone. She saw the first production of Volpone, believed it would be a successful work with multiple productions, but was still concerned about the dumb-downed lyrics derived from Ben Johnson’s masterful comic play. The second production and a second viewing may provide the Dresser with a new level of appreciation. Furthermore, the Dresser subscribes to the tenet that opera should reach out to everyone on some level.
WHAT’S PACKED IN THE ARTIST’S BOX
The Dresser notes that she heard a staged reading of an early and unfinished opera by John Musto (Pope Joan with libretto by Denise Lanctot Balle). Experiencing the trajectory of an artist’s career has always excited the Dresser and what Musto is doing with Later the Same Evening kindles the Dresser’s expectation for a satisfying addition to American opera repertory. Depicted below are the NGA auditorium where the press conference performance took place and a Later the Same Evening set model designed by Erhard Rom.
Photo Credit: Karren Alenier
Also in the Hopper shrine, the Dresser nods to the experimental but difficult opera that librettist Michael Korie and composer Stewart Wallace (best known for their opera Harvey Milk) premiered to good press in 1997 entitled Hopper’s Wife. The Dresser exits this set of musings with a poem written by Richard McCann and inspired by Hopper.
SKETCHES FOR PAINTINGS,
REAL AND IMAGINED, BY EDWARD HOPPER
Sunday Morning, Cape Cod
And when I woke the sun was abrupt and fortunate
rising in the room like water ... white ceiling ...white walls
and through an open window ...forsythia
what had I dreamed ... those years
someone whispering in the dark ... not me ... not me ...not me
the words made tunnels too small to crawl through
I was entering my life
and the dead were gone
though I could still see them if I tried
through the back window their small wooden cottage
their red blankets pinned to the clothesline to dry
Western Motel
As for the room: green walls; asbestos curtain, some shade of orange.
I'd been waiting there all morning, the car parked outside.
If you didn't come back, I thought, I'd walk along the highway.
I counted six squares of sunlight on the carpet.
I kept thinking it was like waiting for an ink stain to disappear.
I'd written something on a piece of paper,
something about there being nothing that couldn't be amended.
I kept looking at the door that gave onto the corridor:
I could see a white placard that showed how to evacuate in fire,
X marking the spot. Nothing's ever final, I told myself
though the water glass I drank from
was unsheathed from its sleeve of waxed paper
and the wrappers from the motel soaps were littering the sink
like pages torn from a calendar.
by Richard McCann published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly
Copyright © 2007 Richard McCann
