Margaret Garwood’s new opera may not contain any soaring arias, but its final moment is a monument to the immorality of overbearing morality.

The Scarlet Letter. Music and libretto by Margaret Garwood, from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel. Richard A. Raub, conductor; Dorothy Danner, director. Academy of Vocal Arts world premiere November 19-21, 2010 at Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St. (above Spruce). (215) 735-1685 or www.avaopera.org.

Hester’s little secret

Like most contemporary operas, Margaret Garwood’s The Scarlet Letter offers scant pickings to opera devotees who relish soaring arias and rousing choruses. For most of its three acts, the dialogue proceeds just like the dialogue in a play, without breaks for big musical numbers. The music functions not so much as an end in itself as to intensify the emotions behind the dialogue.

By that standard, the musical side of the enterprise usually succeeds. The vocal writing in The Scarlet Letter is straightforward and unshowy, but it fits the dialogue, and it’s supported by instrumental writing that reinforces the impact and includes inventive touches.

The pantomimes deliver some of the best musical moments.  Garwood speeds up the action by staging several key scenes as wordless sequences supported by instrumental music. The woodland sexual encounter that leads to Hester Prynne’s pregnancy is treated that way, and it tells you everything you need to know about the feelings of two young people who yield to an innocent romantic attraction. A love duet, under the circumstances, would have been absurd.

Spiritual conflict

The first two acts could use some thoughtful pruning, but the third act is a gem. Garwood behaves like a traditional opera composer, seizing every musical opportunity her script offers. The act opens with a lively 17th-Century election-day street scene and follows that with a catchy processional and a series of dialogues and semi-arias that capture all the anguish of the emotional and spiritual conflicts tormenting Hawthorne’s characters.

The opera’s final moment is a powerful, unforgettable theatrical experience: a heartbreaking image of three people trapped in the mire of an inhuman religious doctrine.

Immoral morality

All societies must regulate sexual behavior, if only because someone must rear the children who occasionally result from our pleasures. But most rural, pre-industrial societies handled out-of-wedlock pregnancies by marching the responsible lad to the altar.  They didn’t hang him in the public square.

The case depicted in The Scarlet Letter is unique in some respects. The lad is a minister of the Gospel. Hester is technically still married, though her husband is presumed lost at sea. Still, most upper class networks could have finessed this problem. A word to the governor could have annulled Hester’s marriage. A quick private marriage could have been scheduled. The child’s early arrival would have evoked a few scandalized titters, accompanied by little nudges recognizing that the young reverend was one of the boys, after all.

Instead, the Puritans of Hawthorne’s Boston turned a commonplace lapse into a major legal and moral crisis. Reverend Dimmesdale must spend the rest of his life tormented by the idea he is eternally damned. Hester Prynne must endure isolation and public humiliation to save him from the gallows. Garwood’s final visual and musical tableau is a monument to the immorality of overbearing morality.♦


To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.