PITTSBURGH — Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens aged one to 17, with 12 children dying from gun violence in America and another 32 injured every day. Since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, more than 390,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school. Consequently, expenditures for school security surpassed $3.1 billion in 2022. This is the reality that composer Laura Kaminsky and librettist Crystal Manich probe in Time to Act, which premiered at Pittsburgh Opera on Feb. 28 at the Bitz Opera Factory.
Manich began work on the libretto in 2018, shortly after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, where 17 students and staff were killed and an equal number injured by a 19-year-old gunman. She places the action in a high school in Anywhere, USA, where the Playmakers, a student theater group, are preparing a production of Sophocles’ Antigone. In the play, Antigone defies her uncle, King Creon of Thebes, by burying her traitorous brother, Polynices, maintaining that the unwritten laws of the gods take precedent over the decrees of a mortal.
The students audition for the lead roles in the play, which, as they delve deeper into its plot, begin to mirror aspects of their own stories. During a rehearsal, the school conducts an active-shooter drill, which triggers unexpected reactions in two students: Alona, a newcomer to the school, and Tyson, the school’s star quarterback, who is sidelined due to an injury to his throwing arm. Tyson, caught up in his concept of team dynamics, objects to Alona being welcomed into Playmakers and given the title role in the play.
Alona and Tyson have experienced the emotional and psychological distress caused by gun violence in incidents involving their siblings. Alona’s revelations cut too close to the quick for Tyson, who lashes out and demands that she be ousted from the group. Later, letting his forced veneer of macho super-jock slip, Tyson relents and takes off the armor of his letter jacket. Alona doffs her jacket, also symbolically shedding her twin burdens of grief and guilt.
Manich, in addition to writing the libretto, directed the production, with set and costumes by Lindsay Fuori. The entire opera takes place in a nondescript classroom with a raised stage at its center. Two one-dimensional Ionic columns are the only play-specific props, apart from Creon’s gold crown. Black boxes become Creon’s throne upon which he sits to dispense justice, and Tyson will ultimately extend compassion to Alona, who kneels before him with her hands bound when real life and fiction combine in a powerful final tableau.
Kaminsky’s score is eclectic and heavy on percussion, which augments a combo of violin, cello, bass, clarinet/alto saxophone, and piano. It opens with a bluesy clarinet solo over a lively toe-tapping rhythm. A bouncy, infectious chant serves to center the students and establish a connection among them. Most importantly, Kaminsky writes effectively for the voice, whether in searing, soul-baring arias and duets or the recitative-like passages that propel the narrative.
Beautiful, evocative instrumental solos amplify the emotions expressed in the soliloquies. The most effective is the violin solo, which courses through Alona’s outpouring of despair, and the similarities between her plight and Antigone’s are laid bare. Fierce drum beats capture the horror of gunfire, while the ominous rumble of the cymbal resonates after Alona speaks the name that links her to a recent school shooting.
Erik Nordstrom’s Tyson was all bluster, an insufferable braggart and lothario, more eager to play the field, literally or figuratively, than act in a play. He instantly repelled the other students and much of the audience as well. Yet by the play’s end, there were tears in Nordstrom’s fine baritone, and lumps formed in many throats, as he sang of the childhood incident that scarred his life.
Mezzo-soprano Timothi Williams gave a searing performance as Alona. When she first entered the classroom, Alona was skittish and secretive, wary of making a connection with anyone. Coaxed to audition for the role of Antigone, Williams transfixed as she expressed the woman’s profound sense of duty toward Polynices with nobility, and did so again as she later sang of her own brother.
Shannon Crowley as Bailey, who auditioned and won the role of Antigone’s sister Ismene, anchored the performance. Her Bailey initially came off as an overbearing, perky type but evolved into a compassionate young woman of purpose. Her exciting lyric soprano could bubble with glee or slice through emotional upheavals like a sword.
Logan Wagner’s José was a lover, not a warrior, and romance suited his shining lyric tenor. He won the role of Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s defender, which transferred to his fondness for Alona. Yazid Gray was an avuncular Robin Grace, the drama teacher who gave his charges a wide berth to craft an Antigone that resonated with their experiences. The warmth and richness of his baritone lent heartbreaking poignancy to a teacher’s inability to stop the senseless cycle of violence that engulfs his students.
Michael Sakir and his ensemble of six players were perched above the stage, deftly managing the dual feat of coordination and balance between the singers and the orchestra. Sakir brought vitality, rhythmic acuteness, and clarity to the score’s livelier passages. In its most dramatic moments, he likewise unleashed their searing intensity with subtle restraint.
Time to Act ends on an almost implausibly optimistic note, with the entire cast singing that they must create the world they want to see. But how else could it end? The alternative would have been images of overwhelming sorrow that the elders have failed to stem. Time to Act will find its audience, undoubtedly in student productions and regional opera companies, where its message of compassion and power will resonate and inspire.
