Opera and story

Even though I said I would read Hawthorne's story "Rappaccini's Daughter" before seeing the opera by Daniel Catan, I did it the other way around, and I saw the second act before actually seeing the first. So I experienced this piece in almost the exact reverse order of its conception, which was fascinating to me as someone who's also composing operas. After the Friday performance, Mr. Catan took questions from the audience; immediately the question arose of adaptation. He eloquently summed up the central dilemma: as a composer you are trying to project the arc of the story, but you are also trying to give the singers beautiful words and melodies. He said a composer almost needs two separate writers: a poet and a dramatist. Very rarely do people (like Shakespeare) manage to combine the two. So Catan uses the poetic version of Hawthorne's story by Octavio Paz, and adapts it with the playwright Juan Tovar.

After learning this, then seeing the whole piece on Saturday, I could tell the joins: the drama spins along (with exposition provided by the maid), and then in the garden Giovanni and Beatriz sing awesome poetry. In some ways, opera has always been like this since Monteverdi in the 1600s. Recitative sections with fast singing (a distant ancestor of rap) move the plot along, while singers emote and reflect on their fates in beautiful, florid arias.

Another problem of adaptation is dramatic compression: in the story, Giovanni and Beatrice become gradually over the course of weeks, walking every day in the garden, although they can never touch. In opera, everything has to happen right away: love at first sight. Music can vividly capture that moment, but it's more difficult for music to show a steadily growing companionship. And these are some of the hard choices Catan had to make as he adapted the Hawthorne. But opera will live or die by its music, and here Catan succeeds with a vivid, moving, expressive score.