Singing Arias About Genocide.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)

Few subjects seem less suited to the sweeping grandeur of opera than Auschwitz. Yet this weekend London's Royal Opera House will premiere "Sophie's Choice," based on William Styron's best-selling Holocaust novel. In the book, bedraggled lines of Jews are marched from the cattle cars to the extermination chambers, while Styron's Roman Catholic heroine, Sophie--played by Meryl Streep in the 1982 film, for which she won an Oscar--is singled out by a sadistic SS guard. He forces her to make every parent's nightmare choice: one of her two children will live and one will die, and she must decide which or all three will perish. It is a story that unflinchingly explores the enduring ravages of the Holocaust on those who survived.

Despite the difficult subject matter, "Sophie's Choice" may well prove to be London's opera highlight of the year. It combines a first-class cast--headed by the dazzling Austrian mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager--with the charismatic conductor Simon Rattle and renowned director Trevor Nunn (of "Les Miserables" and "Sunset Boulevard" fame). Composer Nicholas Maw, known for his lush, melodic scores, lifted nearly the entire libretto directly from the book. He contends that the lingering horror of the Holocaust makes it particularly good fodder for opera. "It is still something that very much affects us, historically, emotionally, politically," he says, taking a break between rehearsals. "That in itself makes it a very suitable subject for an opera." Novelist Styron agrees. Interviewed by phone from his Connecticut home, he says that the "notion that there's something sacrosanct about the Holocaust" is "an overly inflated idea that it has come time to dismiss." London critic Norman Lebrecht notes that "Sophie's Choice" is merely the latest in a string of operas based on current events-- including the hijacking by Palestinian terrorists of the Achille Lauro cruise ship ("The Death of Klinghoffer"), the plight of prisoners on death row ("Dead Man Walking") and the demise of Princess Diana ("When She Died: Death of a Princess").

Still, there are plenty who think that genocide cannot--and should not- -be turned into arias. Indeed, music has a particularly fraught connection to the Holocaust: the Nazis reveled in Wagner and Strauss, and even forced Jewish musicians to play while their ...