Heroes of the hometown | Opera | santafenewmexican.com
In 2008, a brutal immigration and customs raid on a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa devastated the city’s population and economy, with half of its residents deported or fleeing. The raid’s impact on the small, ethnically diverse community is now the subject of a new one-act opera, Hometown of the world, which will be staged by the Santa Fe Opera at the Lensic Performing Arts Center on Friday December 17 and Sunday December 19.
Composer Laura Kaminsky
Its creators are composer Laura Kaminsky and librettist Kimberly Reed, who today have a strong presence in the world of opera. They and co-librettist Mark Campbell wrote the chamber opera Like a, in which two performers, Hannah Before (baritone) and Hannah After (mezzo-soprano), share the role of a transgender person. It has become the most frequently staged American opera of the 21st century, with more than 40 productions since its premiere in 2014 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Hometown of the world involves three characters: Linda Larsen, the county commissioner; Linda Morales, a recent immigrant to Postville; and Abraham Fleischman, a recent transplant from Brooklyn. Their lives are suddenly intertwined as a result of the raid. “We want this piece to be a challenge for the audience, a call to action,” Kaminsky said. “This is not a documentary opera about three real people. Each of these functions as a metaphor for one of Postville’s three main populations – the longtime Scandinavian Protestant farmers, the predominantly Guatemalan Catholics who were the meat factory’s workforce, and the owners and Hasidic Jewish operators of the factory.
Prior to the raid, Postville looked like a multicultural Midwestern success story (the city’s motto has become the title of the opera), but the post-raid environment is much different, with tensions and accusations arising from contact between characters. Larsen’s attempt to create a crisis response coalition collapses into recriminations, Morales’ husband and son are deported, and as an undocumented alien she is unable to work, and Fleischman, who was dismissed by his Lubavitch family for his homosexuality, ends up living in the old room of the son of Morales.
Librettist Kimberly Reed
“If you think of the geometry of the characters as a triangle, it’s very stable,” Reed says, “but if you move a part, it collapses. We wanted to find ways to make them all dependent on each other, to show that the power of community comes from unity and collaboration. Thanks to the prompting of a children’s choir who sings the text of “The New Colossus” (the poem by Emma Lazarus at the foot of the Statue of Liberty), Larsen, Morales and Fleischman are finally able to stop focus on their ethnicity. , racial and religious to recognize their commonalities.
The transformation happens in musical terms, rather than plot developments, a decision the creators made to keep the ending from getting too sentimental. Instead of the characters gathering on stage, each occupies their own “holy space” and begins a prayer – Morales a Catholic prayer sung in Spanish, Larsen a Protestant prayer in English, and Fleischman a Jewish prayer in Hebrew. They begin in very different musical styles, which eventually merge into a unity of composition on a final “Amen”. Singers and characters then all swear to “repair the world”.
It is the longest scene in the opera and the shortest in terms of text length, just a few stage directions and prayer quotes. “It was a brilliant challenge Kim gave me,” Kaminsky said. “I had to find a way to musically reflect the traditions of the three religions without stealing the existing prayer tunes. Fortunately, I don’t know much about prayer music from any tradition, so I didn’t feel disrespectful or plagiarized. But I had to go to a holy place to find my way through this horribly bare piece of text. “
Conductor Carmen Florez-Mansi
Director Kristine McIntyre
Hometown of the world will be directed by Carmen Flórez-Mansi and directed by Kristine McIntyre. Flórez-Mansi is well known locally for her work as pastoral associate for music at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and director of the Santa Fe Symphony Choir. McIntyre has directed over 100 opera productions for American companies with an emphasis on new and contemporary works. She also produced apprentice scenes for the Santa Fe Opera. This is her first production.
“I’ve been involved with the play since early 2020,” McIntyre said. “I was in Washington, DC, working with a band called Urban Arias when I got a phone call from the Santa Fe Opera asking if I would be interested in directing it. I had actually seen Laura Kaminsky the night before, so it seemed orderly one way or another.
McIntyre attended the last of three play development workshops, at Arizona State University, in February 2020. “McIntyre said. She is now in Santa Fe for rehearsals which started right after Thanksgiving with the principals – mezzo-sopranos Blythe Gaissert and Cassandra Zoe Velasco as Linda Larsen and Linda Morales, respectively, and baritone Michael Kelly as Abraham Fleischman.
The choristers come from the music programs of St. Michael’s High School and Cathedral Basilica and have been rehearsing via Zoom since early October. “The score is very difficult both harmonically and rhythmically,” said Flórez-Mansi. “There are 12 singers, ages 12 to 17, and they sing five-part choirs. Their vocal lines are not played by any of the orchestral instruments, so they have to manage while singing unusual intervals, such as tritons, and sophisticated rhythms, such as triplets on barlines.
The choristers play everyone except the three named characters, so they will frequently be on stage in addition to the three numbers they sing. As Flórez-Mansi sees it, “Children are the soul, the conscience and the hope of Hometown of the world. “The script also has a personal resonance for her.” At the Cathedral Basilica, we work with many immigrant families. Just like at the opera, we have had a few that were broken during the deportation of a parents. So it’s a story that is still happening today and much closer to us than Iowa. ”