'Moby Dick' The Opera

REBECCA ROBERTS, Host:

Bill Zeeble of member station KERA reports on the Dallas Opera premiere.

BILL ZEEBLE: The Dallas Opera's artistic director Jonathan Pell says he was hot for celebrated composer Jake Heggie to write a work for the company's new opera house.

JONATHAN PELL: Now, the first thing when he said to me "Moby Dick," my first reaction was, hmm, does anything else come to mind?

ZEEBLE: Not really, responded Heggie, who insisted.

JAKE HEGGIE: And when he realized that this was the idea that I was deeply passionate, inspired by, it didn't take him long to come around.

ZEEBLE: Heggie convinced Pell he had some ideas for turning the epic novel into a navigable three-hour opera.

HEGGIE: It's a tremendous adventure story and it's got real human drama. It makes sense for people to sing rather than say these words, because the emotions are so huge, the conflicts are so large and so real.

ZEEBLE: "Moby Dick" starts quietly.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ZEEBLE: Brooding music conjures an uncalm sea. Video-projected stars shine against a stark night sky. Constellations morph into navigational routes, which become sailing charts and then form a ship.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ZEEBLE: Elaine McCarthy, whose credits include "Spamalot" and "Wicked," says she tried to match her projection design to the story.

ELAINE MCCARTHY: It's a very poetic work, and if we went in there and made it, you know, a ship on the stage with a horizon line and a sky and the water, it would've just killed it.

ZEEBLE: So the stage becomes the ship deck with masts, harpoons and rigging. One of the more literal translations from the novel is Ahab's peg leg. Tenor Ben Heppner has to bend his left leg back while the stage crew ties it up, so it's hidden under his long coat with a peg attached at his knee. Heppner says there was no getting away from what for him is this opera's biggest challenge.

BEN HEPPNER: It hasn't threatened to cramp, thank heavens. But when and I go out for that last entrance in Act II, that is with Morgan, Starbuck, and then I know from that moment on I'm on stage until the end of the opera, I'm thinking: Oh, boy, this is going to be difficult.

ZEEBLE: Heppner says the music was anything but. A favorite scene occurs in Act II, when Ahab almost gives up his chase for "Moby Dick."

(SOUNDBITE OF "MOBY DICK")

HEPPNER: (Singing) (Foreign language spoken)

ZEEBLE: Baritone Morgan Smith as first mate Starbuck, sings the duet with Heppner. The tranquil scene follows a rough storm before the action again turns turbulent.

HEPPNER: You could see the entire opera as kind of this storm, this character spinning out of control. Ahab's madness, descent into madness, Starbuck's descent into a world where everything is going against what he knows to be true and right.

ZEEBLE: The opera tells the story using Herman Melville's words almost verbatim. To a person, the singers praise Heggie's ability to turn that language into music. Heggie says "Moby Dick" forced him to work in a new way.

HEGGIE: The combination of the sweep and scope of Melville's language, the beauty of this story, the depth of the characters, all pushed me into a whole new realm of composing and thinking about what music is on a stage.

ZEEBLE: For NPR News, I'm Bill Zeeble in Dallas.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ROBERTS: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Liane Hansen returns next week. I'm Rebecca Roberts.

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