Opera in Review

CANADA

TORONTO

English cellist Jacqueline du Pre burst onto the music scene in the 1960s. In 1965, at the age of 20, she made a recording of Elgar’s cello concerto which is still the standard against which all others are judged. In 1967, she converted to Judaism and in Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Six Days War, married Daniel Barenboim, then at the height of his fame as a pianist, becoming part of a New York ‘jet set’ of intellectuals, musicians and artists. Then in 1968, du Pre started to experience numbness and fatigue in her fingers. Initially it was misdiagnosed as a psychiatric problem but four years later, was confirmed as multiple sclerosis. She was forced to give up performing and died in 1987 at the age of 42.

How does one make an opera out of such a story? Librettist Royce Varek (see profile p. 34) and composer Laura Pearl Woolf’s answer is to focus on the relationship between Jacqueline and her cello—“mon ami.” They form the two characters in Tapestry Opera’s Jacqueline (seen Feb. 19th). The title role is sung by soprano Marnie Breckenridge with Matt Haimovitz providing most of the accompaniment on cello though occasionally, pre-recorded music is blended in to good effect. The libretto goes well beyond simple narrative. There’s a real sense of time and place in the choice of words and while, obviously, we are dealing with a very sad story, it’s often very funny. Vavrek’s ability to conjure up a particular kind of England of the 60s and 70s is uncanny.

It’s all very intimate and very clever. The music moves between the sound world most associated with du Pre—Brahms, Elgar…—and something more atonal and astringent. We really hear a conversation between the cello—the most human of instruments—and the singer, made all the more compelling by Breckenridge, who on occasion, adopted a cello-like glissando between sung tones.

The designs, direction and staging are stark. The stage of the Betty Oliphant Theatre is ringed by chairs and music stands leaving two spotlit chairs for the performers. Occasionally props—an LP, a record player—descend from the fly loft. Otherwise Michael Mori’s direction is all about physical movement and the relationship between woman and cello.

Much of the success of the piece as drama comes from the sheer intensity of the performances. Breckenridge sustains her persona brilliantly over about an hour and a half (plus an interval) which is quite a marathon