Nicole Cabell (left) and Rehanna Thelwell
(By Eric Woolsey)
By Eric Meyer
Special to the Post-Dispatch
May 30, 2021
For Opera Theatre of St. Louis,
a silver lining in the pandemic cloud includes “Highway 1, U.S.A.” by
William Grant Still, the “dean” of African American composers.
Originally,
singers were under contract to perform George Gershwin’s “Porgy and
Bess” this season, which turned out to be far too long for the
abbreviated performance times of the socially distanced outdoor
festival.
“By June 2020,
however, that consideration felt insignificant as we considered urgently
renewed calls for social justice and racial equity following the
murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others,” OTSL
general director Andrew Jorgensen told the Post-Dispatch by email. “We
owed it to our community to be more authentically inclusive of Black
voices.”
And this created a perfect storm for the success “Highway 1” turned out to be on Saturday’s opening performance.
Still
was an American composer of more than 200 works including eight operas,
five symphonies, and many choral works and chamber pieces. He was the
first African American composer to have an opera, “Troubled Island,”
produced by the New York City Opera. His “Afro-American Symphony” (1930)
was, until the mid-20th century, widely performed.
Still composed classical music with an American signature and an African American voice.
“My musical training emphasized
European musical culture,” Still said in a historic radio interview,
“but this failed to satisfy me completely as a basis for an idiom of
expressing myself. Therefore, I sought to create an idiom unmistakably
American.”
With
a libretto by Verna Arvey, Still’s second wife, “Highway 1, U.S.A.”
tells the distinctly American story of a married couple, Bob and Mary,
who help Bob’s younger brother, Nate, through college. Tensions build as
Bob tells Mary that Nate needs more time to “establish himself.” The
score blends elements of Romanticism, blues and musical theater.
Stage director Ron Himes (Black Rep founder and producing director) set
the production in the early 1960s, on the brink of the civil rights
movement. He coordinated a cast that includes a chorus of church members
on the smaller outdoor stage.
Soprano Nicole Cabell sang a fabulous
Mary and handled the emotional volatility of the part with finesse — in
her double-entendres toward Nate, for example. The confessional ending
of the first act (“How I hate him!”) showed off the emotional depth of
Cabell’s vocal abilities.
Mary’s
husband, Bob, was portrayed by baritone Will Liverman with a fine
balance between the power of his heartfelt duty to his late mother’s
dreams for Nate and the unexamined vulnerability of his own dreams
deferred. His exchanges with Mary at the end were rich and full of
pathos.
As Nate, tenor Christian Mark Gibbs was
brilliantly bratty. The music for his part is lush and beautiful, full
of all the potential and faith his mother had for him. Gibbs’
double-edged performance of “What does he know of dreams?” was
remarkable as the text contradicts his charming boyishness and lyrical
voice.
Mezzo-soprano Rehanna
Thelwell was great as Aunt Lou, delivering a particularly striking aria
in conversation with Mary (“The first day I saw you”). And baritone
Andrew René sang a commanding yet sensitive sheriff.
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