Bloomberg
News, Warwick Thompson
Fade is a 25 minute piece by American composer Stefan Weisman, with a libretto by David Cote. In it, wealthy New Yorkers Gertrude and Albert enter their modern new house in the country, only to find that it cannot heal the problems in their relationship. Weisman's music is lyrical in a Philip-Glass-meets-John Adams vein, and he has an ear for a gracious melody. The Stage, Edward Bhesania Second Movement is a young opera company that stages rarely-heard, small-scale operas in often unusual venues - its fifth production is a neatly programmed all- American triple bill, featuring a world premiere by composer Stefan Weisman...to a libretto by American writer David Cote. A young couple, Albert and Gertrude, arrive in their new house as their new Housekeeper unpacks, and bickering ensues (perhaps tempered by the Housekeeper’s presence) after Gertrude discovers the place is less than fully eco-friendly - “Half sun, half grid. It’s a hybrid,” enthuses Albert. Albert’s attachment to the material world is poignantly emphasised in Gertrude’s ravishing, almost Straussian aria, in which she reminisces while admiring the sun’s reflection on the lake...the vocal music is sympathetically written for the voices, and Jane Harrington’s Gertrude, David Butt Philip’s Albert and Hannah Pedley’s Housekeeper all deliver fine performances. Opera, Peter Reed Fade involves [a] young couple. Gertie and Albert have just moved into their lovely summer home, built on what’s left of Gertie’s grandmother’s estate. A mysterious Housekeeper is unpacking. Weisman has crammed anxieties about terrorism and the environment, a Chekhovian dwelling on the ghosts of the past and the fragile beauties of nature into a short piece...The music aims at an ecstatic, John Adams- style, heightened reality, and at times it approached a disquiet and supernatural ambiguity reminiscent of the film The Others. Metro, Warwick Thomson I sometimes think of opera in London as a huge ocean liner...and Second Movement is the engine room, the place which constantly generates excitement, heat and the roar of creation...For real cutting edge excitement you can't beat a world premiere. Fade, the first opera to be commissioned by the company, tells the story of a newly built eco-house going horribly wrong. The music is by young New Yorker Stefan Weisman, and the libretto by theatre critic David Cote. Opera Now, Michael White Glimpses of the sterile lives and straining hearts that are the truth behind the Good Life in America, this...was a smart idea from a sassy, new, and evidently well- connected little company called Second Movement...The score consisted of largely instrumental texture underlying conversational exchange. The conversation was between a married couple and their maid as they moved into a new house and, by implication, into the downward spiral of their relationship...You have to applaud Second Movement for their enterprise in taking on a new work...Overall, there was a good feel about this young company: an energy, a sense of self-belief and keen ambition. And whatever its rough-edges musically, it had panache. The DNA of something special in the making. BBC Radio, Sean Rafferty It’s a tale of everyday American life, goodness knows that can be turbulent enough in these times…The piece is set in a new eco-house, but it’s an age-old conflict. It’s a couple who with time on their hands realize they haven’t as much in common as they might have…It’s the American dream gone wrong…But it’s very melodic, and it’s very approachable. Broad Street Review, Steve Cohen Center City Opera Theatre is performing an estimable service by giving public stage performances of new operas–taking embryonic works from page to stage, as artistic director Andrew Kurtz puts it...Kurtz and a committee sifted through a hundred scores that were submitted for consideration, and three were rehearsed and presented... Fade had attractive music with softer contours, leaning towards French impressionism. If you’re in a complimentary mood, you could say it was mesmerizing...David Cote wrote a libretto that I’d like to re-read at leisure. Stefan Weisman composed the music, which I might like to hear as an instrumental suite. The Dressing (Scene4 Magazine), Karren LaLonde Alenier David Cote's libretto is worth reading on its own...In Fade, the state-of-the-art house doesn't match up to the wife's principles for a "green" house or to her memories of what the former house belonging to her grandmother meant to her in terms of family relationships. More and more, technological advances interfere with human relationships. Scene4 Magazine, Maxine Kern This realistically depicted story achieves larger dimension when dreams are sung by Gertie, the wife (soprano Amy van Roekel), and Albert, the husband (Jonathan Hays), and countered by cautionary musical inflection in the singing of the housekeeper (mezzo Pamela Stein) who sees the flaws of this anachronistic edifice and wants only to get home as soon as possible. The character of the music changes as the three people realize their positions and come to terms with the house itself...At first the housekeeper sings with rich, carefully chosen words and she is addressed with sweeping romantic dialogue, mostly expressed by Jonathan Hays as Albert, with his strong and flowing baritone. The dialogue itself creates suspense immediately, questioning everything. What is the housekeeper's name? What is in the boxes that are collected in the house? Are there still ghosts here from the old house that has replaced the new? The housekeeper, a young woman alone with two children, muses about whether she would like to live in a big house like this one miles from town and tucked into the woods. For a short while, humor surfaces in the face of suspense and questioning as the wife grounds the conversation in contemporary concerns about eco-friendly values, which get short shrift in this outsized mansion...The music does a fine job of pacing the delivery of these arguments in overlapping and ongoing dialogue. When the subtext between the couple overwhelms them into dismay, the music fills in for deliberate gaps in their singing. As such the music continues the original building of suspense, this time by indicating an underlying emotional tension, which chokes up their dialogue. After that, the dialogue and the music allow for arias and contrasting sounds and rhythms. The wife's arias are sweet, romantic and soaring, taking on a Straussian quality; the husband's, perfunctory yet strong. The suspense is diminished, even as lights in the house go out. At this point, the composition tries to regain its original storyline about what will happen, yet also reflecting the fading of the couple's energy and their mutual but discordant disappointment. |
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