Introducing the 4th Annual Fresh Squeezed Ounce of Opera showcase winners Thomas Whitman and Nathalie Anderson, creators of the micro-opera Sukey in the Dark, in its Texas Premiere.
Performing and producing new works by living composers and librettists offers artists the opportunity for real-time communication — something Mozart and Verdi can’t offer! After spending time with the scores and their characters, Sukey in the Dark cast members Julia Watkins-Davis (Sukey), Cristina Flores (Chloe), Patricia Combs (Zoe), and Robert LeBas (Eros) had these questions for the creators:
The myth of Cupid and Psyche has resonated with artists for centuries; what compelled you to bring them into the 21st century?
What drew us to this story in the era of internet seductions, clandestine bigamy, and s&m posturing was the idea that a woman might never see her lover’s face — might agree never to see him truly — and not realize the peculiarity of the situation until she sees herself through others’ eyes. This reminded us of situations we’ve observed, where a dysfunctional co-dependency develops incrementally, so that a couple suddenly realizes a relationship has become malignant and abusive without understanding how they could have let it happen. But we’re also aware that outsiders don’t always see the complications within unconventional relationships, and we wanted to portray this relationship not as abusive — though Psyche’s sisters believe it is — but as under negotiation, where Cupid is trying to protect his secret love from his family’s disapproval, and the intellectual Psyche is uneasy about losing herself — her mind, really — in physical intensity. We’re interested in considering how it might be possible for strong-willed men and women — of different backgrounds, different ages, different reputations, different degrees of “deity” — to interact as equals. In this piece, we figured that dilemma through the meshing of Psyche’s self-doubt — “I sleep in the dark until I’m dark myself” — and Eros’s deflective despair — “We can’t be together; I don’t want to talk about it.”
Did the various repeating musical themes grow organically during the composition process, or did you have them in mind from the beginning?
I began composition only after I had the text of the libretto. All of the musical material evolved in response to Nathalie’s words. -TW
In the actual myth, the sisters were quite a bit more selfish/mean/”evil.”. What made you change their underlying character type? And they had no names in the original myth. How did you come up with Chloe and Zoe?
Much modern opera is not interested in humor. We are. Nathalie has always loved the name Zoe, the name of a friend’s daughter, because it means “life.” She wanted something to suggest a kinship between the sisters, but also a difference, and so she came up with these rhyming names.
Some people feel that the myth of Psyche and Cupid is symbolic of the problematic issues in expectations for romantic relationships today. How do you think the characters in this story play a role in that (if any) and what do you suspect will be the outcome for Sukey and Eros?
It’s a truism of contemporary thought that romance is pernicious. It sets up expectations of perfection without effort. One thing that Eros and Sukey learn is that they have to work at it; have to listen, have to compromise. Of course, the opposite side of the mutually supportive but unconventional relationship is the manipulative power dynamic that has led to the #MeToo movement. We hope our opera encourages equality in relationships, and we hope Sukey and Eros will in fact give brith to Harmony.
Nathalie Anderson is an award-winning poet, accomplished librettist, and Professor of English Literature at Swarthmore College. Her books of poetry include Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers, Quiver, Stain, and the chapbook Held and Firmly Bound. She has authored libretti for five operas – The Black Swan; Sukey in the Dark; an operatic version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia; Cassandra; and a children’s opera, The Royal Singer – all in collaboration with the composer Thomas Whitman. Anderson received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 1993, and has taught at Swarthmore for 36 years, where she serves now as Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor in the Department of English Literature, and directs the Program in Creative Writing.
Thomas Whitman (b. 1960) began his musical studies with cellist Harry Wimmer. He studied composition with George Crumb, Gerald Levinson, Max Lifchitz, and Richard Wernick, among others. A Luce Scholar in 1986-87, he studied in Bali, Indonesia, with the late I Madé Gerindem. Other prizes and honors include an ASCAP Foundation Grant; artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo; and commissions from many ensembles, including Orchestra 2001, Network for New Music, North/South Consonance, Mélomanie, and Dolce Suono Ensemble. Whitman’s compositions include chamber music, dance and film scores, and five operas. On the faculty of Swarthmore College since 1990, he is the founder and co-director of Gamelan Semara Santi, the Philadelphia area’s only Indonesian percussion orchestra. He has also taught Indonesian performing arts for many years as a volunteer in urban public schools. Selected recordings are available on Avie, North/South, and Albany Records. Sheet music is available through Cassiopeia Publishing.