{"id":85822,"date":"2024-02-22T00:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T05:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/operawire.com\/?p=85822"},"modified":"2024-02-21T11:13:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T16:13:20","slug":"cd-review-tobias-pickers-awakenings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/operawire.com\/cd-review-tobias-pickers-awakenings\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review: Tobias Picker’s ‘Awakenings’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second major opera based on the writings of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose case study “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” was adapted by Michael Nyman in 1986.<\/p>\n

“Awakenings,” by American composer Tobias Picker<\/a>, <\/i>is inspired by Sacks\u2019 1973 account of treating victims of encephalitis lethargica. Nicknamed the \u201csleeping sickness,\u201d this coma-like condition is marked by catatonia and hypersomnia. In the late 1960s, while serving on staff at a Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx, Sacks encountered a group of individuals suffering from the illness. His experiments with the anti-Parkinson\u2019s medication L-DOPA \u201cawakened\u201d these patients, but their revivification was tragically short-lived. Uncontrollable tics and psychotic side effects soon took over, and the drug was stopped, causing many of the patients to slip back into their somnolent states.<\/p>\n

Recorded in 2023 on Boston Modern Orchestra Project\u2019s (BMOP) in-house label, “Awakenings” premiered a year earlier at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Picker first adapted the story as a 20-minute ballet in 2010, though from what\u2019s available of that piece online, it doesn\u2019t sound like he recycled any significant stretches of the score in his operatic version. The subject matter may seem rather unusual for Picker, given the verismo <\/i>tales of murder and forbidden desire he typically favors for his operas. But in fact, he was close friends with the late Sacks, who helped the composer work through his Tourette\u2019s. Moreover, Picker\u2019s husband Aryeh Lev Stollman\u2014who penned the libretto for “Awakenings”\u2014is himself a physician\/author like Sacks.<\/p>\n

Highly fictionalized doctor dramas certainly make for engaging soap<\/i> operas. But the real-life minutiae of the medical field\u2014all the diagnosing, prescribing, monitoring, and rehabilitating\u2014wouldn\u2019t seem to lend themselves to the stage, no matter how theatrically miraculous the cure is. Nevertheless, Picker and Stollman make a case, at least in the opera\u2019s initial scenes. The expertly crafted opening sequence features a choral retelling of the Sleeping Beauty myth. Subgroups of the Odyssey Opera choir trade off phrases of a folksong-like melody that melancholically conveys a sense of powerlessness. All the while, the BMOP, conducted by Gil Rose, plods steadily through monotone repetitions of the pitch A, standing in for the patients\u2019 statuesque immobility.<\/p>\n

As the act unfolds, Picker traces the sleepers\u2019 return to life through simple yet effective musical means. Scene three introduces a lethargic ostinato on piano, cycling endlessly on D\u2014F\u2014E. When the L-DOPA doses finally kick in for patient Leonard, this three-note figure gradually picks up in tempo, and a soaring solo-violin line manages to break free from the static pattern. In the episode that follows, a buoyant waltz theme reminiscent of Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s “Jen\u016ffa” prelude takes over as more patients regain their movement. However, it\u2019s soon supplanted by a new motive that instills a tinge of unease\u2014a rocking perfect fifth that suddenly sinks a half-step downward to a minor sixth. It perfectly captures Dr. Sacks\u2019 ominous remark about the \u201cglorious yet foreboding\u201d summer days his patients are enjoying for the first time in years.<\/p>\n

While Penny Marshall\u2019s 1990 film adaptation of “Awakenings” focuses almost exclusively on Robert De Niro\u2019s Leonard, Stollman divides the narrative among Leonard and two other patients, Miriam and Rose\u2014a charming pair of gal pals played with equal parts pathos and humor by soprano Joyce El-Khoury<\/a> and mezzo Adrienne Danrich<\/a>, respectively. We see brief glimpses into their pre-disease lives, we witness them reconnecting with family, and we hear their mixed feelings of delight and disorientation at having been pulled into a present they don\u2019t recognize. Yet the opera starts to lose momentum here, with each scene falling into a predictable structure\u2014a long, meandering stretch of arioso dialogue culminating in a sweeping ensemble number. We\u2019re supposed to be touched by these more lyrical moments, and Picker\u2019s Sondheimian vocal writing is certainly lovely. But Stollman\u2019s text often lacks the poetry needed to communicate the characters\u2019 emotional extremes in any depth.<\/p>\n

By the time the curtain closes, it\u2019s not clear what we\u2019re meant to take away. Some cheap carpe diem<\/i> platitude would surely ring hollow. But otherwise, all we\u2019re left with is overwhelming frustration. Before our eyes, a group of innocent invalids has been resurrected, teased with the illusion of recovery, and then dispatched back into oblivion. Even the small taste of normalcy they regain is fraught with disappointment. Stollman establishes a love triangle among Leonard, the fictional Nurse Rodriguez, and Dr. Sacks, who only came out publicly in the last year of his life. Tenors C\u00e9sar Delgado<\/a> as Rodriguez and Andrew Morstein<\/a> as Leonard express their private longings in bittersweet torch songs, crowned by aching, Italianate top notes. Morstein\u2019s sweetly na\u00efve head voice and tone of youthful infatuation is particularly affecting, given that he\u2019s playing a middle-aged patient who was robbed of his adolescence. Yet all this pining remains closeted and unrequited\u2014the sad reality for many gay men of the era, but one that only exacerbates the numbing dissatisfaction of this opera.<\/p>\n

In their liner notes, the creators claim they tried to maintain an objective stance to the story. Yet there are subtle manipulations, both in the score and in the performances, that musically divide the characters into good and bad guys. Sacks is undeniably framed as the former: baritone Jarrett Porter<\/a> delivers the doctor\u2019s reassurances with fatherly compassion, his tone giving way to defeated exhaustion when he realizes the repercussions of his actions. In a heartfelt monologue redolent of Britten\u2019s “Peter Grimes,” he admits his hubris over the plodding \u201cstatue\u201d ostinato of the opening chorus. Yet Sacks never seems to fully take responsibility, pinning his flaws on the homophobic rejection of his mother, which we see in an awkwardly shoehorned flashback.<\/p>\n

Once it sets in that a terrible medical injustice has taken place, our frustration inevitably hardens into anger. Indeed, one\u2019s views on the doctors in charge totally transform\u2014perhaps in spite of Picker and Stollman\u2019s intentions. Ultimately, it\u2019s the would-be antagonist who honestly articulates the ethical dilemma raised here. The hospital\u2019s medical chief\u2014whose ridiculous name \u201cPodsnap\u201d is taken from the bigoted buffoon of Dickens\u2019 “Our Mutual Friend”\u2014is portrayed with Verdian villainy by bass Keith Klein<\/a>. It\u2019s Sacks, we\u2019re told again and again, who treats his patients with selfless love while Podsnap is the rigid authoritarian, initially rejecting the request to administer L-DOPA. By the end of the opera, however, Podsnap\u2019s seemingly small-minded admonition, \u201cWe don\u2019t experiment here,\u201d comes off retrospectively like the kind of prudent wisdom needed to make a morally complex decision. Although Klein never sheds his air of stubborn arrogance in the character\u2019s final aria, Podsnap\u2019s closing words impart the hard truth we need to hear: \u201cCan it be wrong to have tried? I don\u2019t know. Though in the end I did not protect them.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s possible to write a successful opera steeped in ambiguity that doesn\u2019t furnish us with firm answers, “Awakenings” hits a strange nerve. Audiences will make of it what they will. After wrestling with the recording several times, this listener was forced to relinquish with a shoulder-shrugging, \u201cThere but for the grace of God go I.\u201d Picker and Stollman themselves seem to leave us with a comparable shrug-like gesture of resignation, reprising the Sleeping Beauty chorus in the final bars with new text: \u201cNo prince, no love, nor God Himself, \/ Did change what Fate ordained.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the second major opera based on the writings of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose case study “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” was adapted by Michael Nyman in 1986. “Awakenings,” by American composer Tobias Picker, is inspired by Sacks\u2019 1973 account of treating victims of encephalitis lethargica. Nicknamed the \u201csleeping sickness,\u201d this coma-like condition is {…}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":85823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,8],"tags":[7646,9651,9001,4776,7193,18118,1804,21240,5144],"class_list":["post-85822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvd-and-cd-reviews","category-in-review","tag-adrienne-danrich","tag-andrew-morstein","tag-awakenings","tag-cesar-delgado","tag-gil-rose","tag-jarrett-porter","tag-joyce-el-khoury","tag-keith-klein","tag-tobias-picker"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCD Review: Tobias Picker's 'Awakenings' - OperaWire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""Awakenings," by American composer Tobias Picker, is inspired by Sacks\u2019 1973 account of treating victims of encephalitis lethargica.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/operawire.com\/cd-review-tobias-pickers-awakenings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CD Review: Tobias Picker's 'Awakenings' - 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