BY STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—Love is an existential danger in opera. Characters who dare make themselves vulnerable to it may very well not survive it. Every opera singer, or at least every tenor and soprano, has likely died of love onstage numerous times, shuffling off this mortal coil to the strains of a pained aria.
The Letters of Charlotte, performed at BARN OPERA this past weekend, follows this operatic template to a point. The production was adapted by Josh Collier, BARN OPERA’s Artistic Director, from Jules Massenet’s 19th-century work Werther, a classic opera of ill-fated lovers. But Collier strips the work down and adds some twists that hybridize it with straight theater.
The story revolves around the unrequited love between Charlotte (JoAnna Pope) and Werther (David Rivera Bozon), who, in the way of opera, are clearly soulmates whom the universe has conspired to keep apart. Charlotte is betrothed and eventually married to Albert (Bryan Murray), an earnest-yet-boring man for whom Charlotte feels little passion. Her sense of propriety keeps her from giving in to her obvious extramarital longings. Werther, for his part, cannot live without Charlotte and, ultimately, he does not, stealing Albert’s pistol and putting himself out of his own misery.
All of this is the stuff of conventional opera: unfulfilled yearnings, heartbreak, suicide. Yet Collier’s frames the main story as a flashback told by an older Charlotte (Brenda Scott), who sits to the side leafing through old love letters from Werther and reminiscing about the love she lost through her fidelity to a man she didn’t really love. And while the other characters sing in French, older Charlotte narrates in English. Ms. Scott imbued the part with the sort of feeling that comes only with life experience.
JOANNA POPE HOLDS David Rivera Bozon as his character expires in the climax of The Letters of Charlotte.
The singers, who also included Hannah Madeleine Goodman as Sophie, Charlotte’s cheerful younger sister, were accompanied only by Liya Nigmati on piano. Ms. Nigmati played with such drama, and managed to fill the space so well, that the lack of an orchestra didn’t even register.
All the singers performed with passion, especially Ms. Pope and Mr. Rivera Bozon as the central lovers. Ms. Goodman’s charming turn as Sophie brought levity to what could sometimes be a heavy storyline. Mr. Murray played Albert with the gravity of a man who realizes he is not loved.
The final death scene, with Charlotte cradling Werther’s lifeless body, was particularly touching, especially when older Charlotte finally interacted with these flashback figures from her own past, reunited with her lost love in such a way that the audience was left in a pleasurable state of ambiguity as to what they were witnessing onstage.
You know you’ve done something right when people continue to interpret what they’ve seen as they leave the theater.
