"A Scandal in Bohemia,' by Orchestra 2001

Eighteenth-Century composers created operas and choral works based on Greek myths and Christian texts. We can still relate to much of that material, but we've subsequently acquired new myths that claim a firmer grip on our imaginations. Two seasons ago the Center City Opera Theater presented an opera based on another modern icon, The Picture of Dorian Gray. And now Swarthmore's Thomas Whitman and Nathalie Anderson have given us an opera about Sherlock Holmes.

Orchestra 2001 presented A Scandal in Bohemia concert-style, with no stage settings, but I've made an interesting discovery. I visualize a staged performance when I think about it. I actually see, in my memory, the scenes that the music and the words sought to evoke. For me, at least, the opera obviously succeeded on the most fundamental and important level.

Anderson's libretto in particular creates a true Holmesian atmosphere, obviously written by someone who understands the Holmes legend. Whitman's music ranges from workmanlike to inspired.

No fear of crowd-pleasing arias

Many contemporary operas consist largely of sung dialogue; their composers carefully avoid the big arias, songs and rousing choruses that classic opera composers inserted whenever the plot gave them the slightest excuse. Scandal has its share of sung dialogue, and it would be more effective if its creators cut some of it. But Whitman isn't afraid to seize opportunities for pure musical numbers.

When Holmes impersonates a drunken workingman, baritone Markus Beam gets to sing a lyrical song. Watson's watch aria as he waits for Holmes is another high point. Whitman and Anderson make good use of the fact that the heroine, Irene Adler, is an opera singer by showing her practicing an aria when she makes her first entrance.

A story of unconsummated love

The love duet between Holmes and Adler is a musical tour de force. Scandal is essentially a love story, but one whose affair is never consummated. The principals hardly recognize that it exists. Holmes and Adler intrigue against each other, and Holmes realizes he may be dealing with a woman who is his intellectual equal. But that's as far as it goes.

The opera gets around this obstacle with a scene in which Holmes and "the woman" ponder each other from the privacy of their own quarters. They are physically separated and psychologically isolated but they can still sing a duet, thanks to the infinite possibilities of musical theater.

The composer exploits the medium in other scenes, too. When Holmes engages in his Act I rant about the personalities of women, the aria becomes a trio as Watson and the King of Bohemia inject their comments into the solo with a comic style that wouldn't work in a spoken play.

A 19th-Century Philip Marlowe

In her arias, Irene Adler pictures Holmes as the man who "sees through the smoke and fog" of the city. Holmes is often described as a purely cerebral character, but he has become, for most of us, a romantic figure who prowls the foggy streets of Victorian London. He is the forerunner of a long line of literary crime fighters embedded in compelling urban milieus. Holmes stalks through 19th-Century London in the same way Phillip Marlowe patrols his patch of southern California and Travis Magee adventures through a Florida landscape shaped by land deals and con games. Anderson is a poet, and her libretto captures the poetry inherent in the romantic side of the Holmes legend.

The opera's other big theme is Holmes's confused attitude toward women. Whitman and Anderson leave that unresolved, as it should be. It's a permanent facet of Holmes' character.

A Scandal in Bohemia is an opera that could appeal to a broad audience, from the Holmes scholars of the Baker Street Irregulars to everyone who has ever watched Holmes and Watson on movie and TV screens. Cut some of the dialogue, find some way to produce it with costumes and settings, maintain the quality of the cast Orchestra 2001 fielded in this production, and the game could well be afoot.



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