I first read Moby-Dick in high school, for an optional book report. I was a pretty clueless person then, but I took to the book, even though I didn't understand all of what I was reading. I read it again sometime in my 30s, and again 4 years ago in preparation for seeing the recently composed opera by Jake Heggie.
Here's a letter I wrote to my children and their spouses afterward which sums up my reaction to book and opera. (I left in the opera review, copied from what I wrote for Don's discussion on our sister site, since it was easy enough to copy.)
"Here's a book review I wrote for my own amusement, coupled with a review of the opera I saw 8 days ago, written for my internet buddies.
I’ve just reread Moby-Dick, in preparation for seeing the opera. What an experience.
The book: you either love it, surrender completely to this quirky, rambling circling around the point, or it drives you up the wall. I love it, just as much as when I read it in high school, though I see different things in it now. It’s 600 pages long, and I estimate that a third is the actual story. After an opening in which we see the narrator’s despairing frame of mind, get a picture of Nantucket, hear a sermon by an ex-whaler minister which states the main moral problem of the book, and meet some important characters, we set sail. Then we’re off, occasional events that advance the story are sandwiched among rambling discourses about whaling, whales in literature and art, natural history, more and more explanations of the details of hunting and killing whales and the perilous job of getting the parts you want out of them.
The story takes over more as we near the end. The moral issues are laid out, the chances for avoiding tragedy are not taken, and we’re into high drama. The language changes—we get bits that could be straight out of Shakespeare, a couple of literary tricks from Homer, scenes laid out like directions for a play, and even the traditional forging of the sword scene--here it’s Ahab’s harpoon, made from the steel of horseshoe nails, and quenched in blood.
It ends with the three day chase of the whale, with boats being lost each day, ending when Ahab is garroted in his own harpoon line, the whale destroys the ship, and only the narrator survives, floating on the empty coffin of Queequeg, his emotional soulmate.
The opera: here's a clip from the San Francisco opera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhnUmkcjWqUHere's the overture, which shows the staging of the lifeboats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTMkOYAMFPMAnd here's a link from one of my internet buddies to a lot of clips. just by scrolling down and looking at the thumbnails, you can get an idea of the staging.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Moby+Dick+opera&sm=3Here's my review:
This prepared me for how totally the opera captures the feel of the book. I was right back in there, the mood intact. A lot of the words were straight from Melville (40 percent, I learned later). They kept all the main themes—blasphemy, madness, sense of identity. The cuts and changes they made were reasonable.
The music: There aren’t any beautiful arias, songs that you want to keep on singing, but the music is tuneful and likeable, and some of it is still ringing in my head. It’s all male voices except for the cabin boy Pip, a soprano trouser role.
The staging: it was incredible, as you already know if you’ve looked at some of the clips. It’s a multimedia experience, starting with a starry sky that coalesces into an outline of the masts of the Pequod (the ship).
The main device is a kind of curved backwall, with projections that serve as hand-and-foot-holds, or can be sat on. This is particularly effective when used as the whaleboats. The outlines of boats and thwarts are projected on the backwall, with the singers correctly positioned. Most of the time when we’re not on the backwall, there’s a striking ship deck, with masts, and rigging, and ladders leading aloft. (It’s best not to worry about how those various ropes ending all over the deck could possibly be functional—it looks good.) The final three day hunting down of Moby Dick is totally abstract. You never see the whale, only the outlines of the boats shattered one by one on the backwall, and finally glittering Pequod going the same way.
The singers were all good. Two were original—Greenhorn (Ishmael), Stephen Costello, and the trouser role Pip, Talise Travigne. My one complaint is that Ahab (Carl Tanner) didn’t quite project the charisma that Ahab must have had to pull his whole crew into his quest. That may not be possible; it barely succeeds in the book.
The whole thing makes a lot of demands on the performers. I learned more in a Q and A session afterwards with some of them. Ahab spends the whole opera walking around with a leg tied up behind him, his knee socketed into a peg leg, and some of that is on a raked stage. He spent a whole year training for it. Queequeg starts with a long stretch of time squatting on the stage, by which time his feet are asleep, then suddenly has to climb up the rigging. Pip wasn’t there, but I read elsewhere that she found the 5 minute stretch when she is overboard from her boat, and is having to sing hanging in a harness in front of a wavy blue backdrop pretty disconcerting.
Librettist Gene Scheer was there too, which is how I know that 40% of the words were Melville, though I could have guessed it was something like that, since the words were still rolling around in my head.
I feel really lucky to have been there."
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