Opera Philadelphia presents Gregory Spears’s Sleepers Awake

Filled with company debuts, Sleepers features the nonpareil Opera Philadelphia chorus, along with three soloists and ten choristers in “step-out” roles. Spears adapted his paradoxical fairy-tale opera principally from writings of Robert Walser (1878-1956), a German Swiss modernist novelist and poet who had marginal success during his lifetime, but whose works are surprisingly influential. This libretto translation is by Ron Sadan, and Spears also draws on works by Arthur Quiller-Couch and Philipp Nicolai (Frances Cox’s translation).

Meet the sleepers

This opera actually begins the moment the house is opened. Veiled “sleepers” walk trance-like through the audience, while clocks tick softly and gentle gongs chime. By the time the house lights slowly dim, and the two harpists in front-of-house boxes strike Spears’ opening chords, director Jenny Koons has created a liminal space, ready for the suspension of time (and belief) that is the opera’s foundational premise.

Visible from the start is the ultra-modern, multi-level Bauhaus-influenced set by Jason Ardizzone West, its spiraling lighted walkways dominated by a massive rotating overhead disk. As it tilts and changes color, adding to the sense of uneasy magic, the 60-member chorus (sections evenly divided) gathers slowly onstage. Depicting courtiers, workers, and townspeople, all were veiled—the symbolic sign of their century-long sleep—as they surround Princess Thorn Rose (soprano Susanne Burgess).

Time and sleep, the spindle and the Stranger

Spears delves deeply into two things we take for granted—time and sleep—and uses the well-known fairy tale to transmute the familiar into the mysteries they actually are. As The Stranger (tenor Jonghyun Park) enters slowly and uncertainly and gingerly kisses Thorn Rose, everyone awakens, singing Nicolai’s text Sleepers, awake! But all is not as expected. The princess is dubious about her unexpected suitor (How did he get here? Who is he?) and all are annoyed that their slumbers have been rudely interrupted.

As Thorn Rose vacillates, the Court Poet (baritone Brian Major) and the company re-tell the fairytale. Led by four Godmothers (Sophia Santiago, Annalise Dzwonczyk, Maren Montalbano, and Robin Bier), the company recounts how the princess, graced by all at birth, was cursed by the disaffected Carabosse (portrayed in a striking duet by The Stranger and the Court Poet, transformed) and ultimately poisoned by that piercing spindle.

Lush harmonics, sensitive soundscape

The idea for a choral opera was suggested by Opera Philadelphia music director Corrado Rovaris, and Opera Philadelphia’s ensemble, under chorus master Elizabeth Braden, sang Spears’s challenging, hypnotic work with an ease that belied its difficulty. As in an oratorio, the chorus tells the story, its lush harmonics punctuated by virtuosic arias and ensembles beautifully realized and acted by the principals. Spears’s use of repetition and close, intricate, ever-changing choral harmonies were impeccably rendered, especially impressive since Koons’s evocative staging separated the ensemble across the playing space, singing while moving.

Like the chorus, Rovaris’s 46-piece orchestra realized Spears’s intricate, multi-layered music with beauty and sensitivity. Referencing the Renaissance and minimalism and everything in between, it was scored for bassoon, two horns, two percussionists, four kinds of keyboards, theorbo, strings, and (true to a fairy tale) two harps. Recorded sound cues amplified from the pit blended seamlessly with the orchestra, and Spears’s instrumental performance notes added depth to the soundscape.

A mesmeric beauty

It’s hard to overstate the mesmeric beauty of Sleepers Awake, with its intricate, effective interweaving of music, words, stagecraft, and design. Exploring “the dynamics and power of a group”, Koons’s shifting, stylized staging created a remarkably effective visual counterpoint to Spears’s fluid score. West’s hard-edged set, its circular walkways rising from the stage floor, allowed the director to move the performers toward and away from the audience, involving them throughout as she did at the opera’s onset.

Yuki Link’s evanescent, dramatic lighting—ranging from cold, hard white to searing magenta and luscious jewel tones—echoed the music’s movement. Maiko Matsushima’s costumes ranged from her monotonal but distinctive garb for the chorus to light-reflecting neon garments to Thorn Rose’s luscious, beautifully designed rich red cloak and gown, often at the opera’s visual center. And overhead, West’s continually tilting disk reinforced the constant shifts of Spears’s libretto and score.

A return to sleep

At the conclusion, after a deeply explored 90 minutes of uncertainty, the company of Sleepers Awake arises and begins to go about their everyday business. Thorn Rose and The Stranger connect and embrace, and the sense of relief in the entranced audience was palpable. But when—cautious or fearful or embracing the status quo—the awakened company decides to re-enter its state of sleep, there was a profound, considered silence in the hall. In the end, in an opera where nothing might appear to change, everything had changed.