BOLCOM: A View from the Bridge.(Review)

BOLCOM: A View from the Bridge [] Malfitano, Rambaldi; Josephson, Turay, Nolen, McCrory; Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra and Chorus, Davies. Text. New World 80588-2

With the possible exception of John Harbison's Met-commissioned The Great Gatsby, no new opera has received a more highly publicized sendoff in recent seasons than William Bolcom's A View from the Bridge. The 1999 Lyric Opera of Chicago premiere was preceded by widespread media attention, including an extended series in The New York Times by Bruce Weber, which documented the creation of the opera from its composition through rehearsals and up to opening night.

Adapted from Arthur Miller's 1955 drama by longtime Bolcom collaborator Arnold Weinstein (with an assist from the playwright), the opera tells the tale of Eddie Carbone, a rough yet good-hearted Brooklyn longshoreman, who takes in two illegal Sicilian immigrant brothers, cousins of his wife, Beatrice. When Eddie's niece Catherine falls in love with the younger brother, Rodolpho, Eddie's unwillingness to confront his own conflicted sexual feelings toward the seventeen-year-old girl leads to increasingly erratic behavior. Eddie betrays the two brothers to the immigration authorities and recklessly provokes Rodolpho's older brother, Marco, who murders him.

This recording is taken from the opera's first run of performances in Chicago. The composer's eclectic, largely tonal style ranges from jazz-tinged rhythms to a syncopated melody that accompanies the Sicilian cousins' entrance to a brief doo-wop, '50s-style chorus for the longshoremen, which opens Act II. As in the play, the song "Paper Doll" makes a brief appearance, sung in soaring verismo fashion by Rodolpho. That secondary character, played by tenor Gregory Turay, has the most interesting music in the opera, including an impulsive item about his desire to buy a motorcycle, complete with clarion top C. More substantial is Rodolpho's aria, "I love the beauty of the view at home." This love song to New York is a stunner, with the most evocative and perfectly blended words and music of the entire score. It is rendered with sensitivity and honeyed tone by Turay, whose performance on opening night nearly stopped the show.

The problem ...