What I want to know is: when the hell did Nico find time to write Dark Sisters: the two act opera currently onstage at the Gerald Lynch Theater? Just five months ago, Nico presented the world premiere of an entirely different opera, Two Boys, to be produced by the Met Opera in 2013. Next month, countertenor Iestyn Davies will premiere Nico's arrangements of four traditional songs at Carnegie Hall. In March, cellist Oliver Coates will premiere Nico's new cello concerto. And, no doubt there are at least 1/2 dozen other projects in the works I don't know about – not to mention his hyperkinetic and hilarious blog.
In an interview with the Times Vivien Schweitzer, Nico reveals that he composed Dark Sisters at the same time as Two Boys, and often had trouble keeping the two separate in his head. In addition, Nico waited until all the roles were cast and Stephen Karam had completed the libretto before starting to compose – a procedure conductor Neal Goren, who commissioned the opera, said was “almost unheard of.”
Dark Sisters, a joint production between the Gotham Chamber Opera, Music Theater Group and Opera Company of Philadelphia, is based on the story of Carolyn Jessop: a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) who was forced at 18 to marry to the self-identified "prophet" Merill Jessop, 50, and live on his compound in Colorado City, AZ, with little-to-no contact with the outisde world. If the age discrepancy wasn't disturbing enough, Jessop already had four other wives who had borne him some 30 children; he would eventually have eight children with Carolyn alone, 54 in total. Jessop eventually escaped in 2003, succeeding in taking her children with her. (Her eldest daughter, Betty, eventually returned to the FLDS.)
Karam's libretto is effective not only in depicting the varying degrees of acceptance displayed by the five "sisterwives" trapped in this manipulative contract, but also the mass media's lurid fascination with plural marriage: the 2nd act begins ingeniously, using closed circuit video to replicate the look and feel of a live TV investigative report (no doubt using Oprah's 2009 visit to the Yearning for Zion Ranch as inspiration.) It was one part The Tender Land, one part Dennis Cleveland: I couldn't take my eyes off the screen, even though the singers were sitting directly in front of me.
Among the cast members, Caitlin Lynch was clearly in command as Eliza: the sister wife who bravely foregoes the only life she's ever known. Baritone Kevin Burdette provided just the right measure of sleaze in the double role of the Prophet and the TV news anchor, King. Stealing she show was mezzo Jennifer Check, who sang with utter conviction as the second wife, Almera: you could just feel the force of her desperate belief.
Nico's music was rich and captivating, as usual, though it lacked a certain bite during the first act, which seemed static and longer than it's actual length of an hour. This was all forgotten during the gripping second half, which began with the rapid-fire music of the telecast, followed by the solemn canon accompanying the tragic suicide of the oldest wife, Ruth, pushed over the brink by the accidental death of her two children, combined with the media onslaught.
As I watched this transfixing victim opera, I couldn't help but think of the recent events at Penn State, where so many individiuals, when presented with the opportunity to correct a horrendous wrong, did nothing. "Say goodbye to men who encourage silent suffering," Eliza says in her climactic aria, "only a false prophet would ask such things of you." I could think of less meaty subjects for Nico to tackle in his third opera.
Dark Sisters completed it's run last night at the Gerald Lynch; it returns in June for a production in Philadelphia. (More pics on the photo page.)