Opera at home
CDs
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
HEGGIE
Pentatone PTC 5186 631
Jake Heggie tackles a syrupy, weepy subject for his latest opera after the great acclaim that greeted his intense but still weepy Dead Man Walking (2000)—a work that essentially launched his career as an opera composer. I’ve seen Frank Capra’s perennial 1946 fantasy comedy-drama film version of It’s a Wonderful Life countless times over the years, and couldn’t get the scenes out of my head while listening to this. While I find Heggie’s two-act treatment sophisticated and entertaining in a musical theatre sort of way, and while it might find a niche as a Christmas offering, it’s not the kind of opera I see myself returning to for repeated listening. This retelling of the film is just too literal and predictable.
Commissioned and coproduced by Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera (where it will be staged in the fall of 2018) and Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, it is presented here in a live recording from the Houston premiere in December 2016, conducted by the company’s artistic and music director, Patrick Summers. The recording was released to coincide with Christmas 2017.
Director Leonard Foglia’s production has a colourful look, judging from photos, and is wisely set in the period of the film. Any other historical setting would be absurd, of course, since the story hinges on protagonist George Bailey’s financial troubles in the folksy all- American town of Bedford Falls during the Great Depression and WWII.
As we all know, George contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve but, thanks to the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence (cast in the opera as a female, Clara), is reminded of all the lives he touched and how different his hometown would have been if he had never been born. He is joyfully reunited with his family at the end. The story is one that tugs the heartstrings in a timeless way, and a reminder that we all should be grateful for
