PHILADELPHIA — In the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty, the curse is cast, a princess’ finger is pricked, one kiss changes everything, and everyone lives happily ever after. The potential of a complex and nuanced backstory is left completely unexplored. Wasn’t it possible that everyone would be just as well off asleep, relieved of the burden of everyday life and its concerns? This is the paradox that Gregory Spears explores in Sleepers Awake, which premiered at Opera Philadelphia on April 22 at the Academy of Music.
The title is taken from Philipp Nicolai’s hymn “Sleepers Awake,” which Bach used in his chorale cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. Rather than the medieval tale or Disney’s spin on it, Spears’ sources are the multiple versions by Swiss writer Robert Walser and another by his near-contemporary, English writer Arthur Quiller-Couch. Walser was among the most important German-language literary modernists, while Quiller-Couch is best known for editing The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900.
From these sources, Spears crafted a story that positions The Stranger who awakens Thorn Rose as an interloper. When The Stranger begins to explain that his actions were motivated by stories about a cursed palace and its sleeping princess, the courtiers, workers, and townspeople stop him. It’s their story to tell, and by the time they are finished, it’s the end of the first act, and they are asleep, as it was 100 years after Thorn Rose pricked her finger.
History repeats when the opera resumes with The Stranger again entering and kissing Thorn Rose for the first time. Rather than swoon and blissfully fall into the Stranger’s arms, Thorn Rose asks why he came to the palace and interrupted their sleep. He responds that he wanted to find a purpose in life, marveling that he succeeded when so many other men had forfeited their lives in their attempts.
Thorn Rose is troubled to learn that brave men died in vain on her behalf. She is further chagrined that the one who succeeded is so awkward and unassuming but agrees to marry him. The exertions of the wedding exhaust everyone, and they again succumb to sleep. Ambiguity is baked into the ending. Did this really happen, or was it just a dream?
Spears evokes over a millennium of musical styles in his scintillating and listener-friendly score. The arias he composed for Thorn Rose and The Stranger are influenced by the 19th-century operatic canon. In the first act, the chorus is central in telling the story of Thorn Rose’s fateful encounter with a spindle. Spears often employs 20th-century minimalism in his choral writing, clearly inspired by John Adams’ early, more lyrical explorations of the style. The repetition of text lends urgency and momentum to the narrative as well as lyricism and beauty to its musical fabric.
Scenes are bookended with the courtly sounds of two harps and a theorbo positioned in boxes on either side of the stage. They serve as musical landing pads that instantly instill a sense of equipoise to the drama and cast a spell evoking the era of courtly love. Jenny Koons manages to do the same with her atmospheric and economic staging that straddles time as efficiently as Spears’ score and Jason Ardizzone West’s streamlined set.
Entering the theater, the audience encounters veiled people holding small lights wandering about who eventually gather on stage. Their iridescent veils will be doffed once they awaken but will be donned again whenever they fall asleep. Under the light the veils shimmer, flecked with an array of colors that evoke magic and mystery rather than gloom.
The veiled individuals gather on stage surrounding a large white disc, over which another one is suspended. The chorus is perched on two intertwining semicircular staircases at the rear of the stage. From there, they will comment upon and at times take part in the action that unfolds on the lower disc. To intensify the story’s emotional thrusts, designer Yuki Link’s illuminates the discs in bold colors including magenta and lime green. Maiko Matsushima’s costumes also span the centuries, with most characters wearing stylized Tudor-era costumes.
Susanne Burgess’ Thorn Rose emerges from her sleep cocooned in an enormous red outer garment, which she sheds to reveal a dazzling scarlet gown. Shorn of her ruff, this Thorn Rose is as sleek and sultry as a film siren and just as imperious when towering over Jonghyun Park’s Stranger. Spears wrote some fiendish vocal lines for Thorn Rose, which Burgess tackled fearlessly. The effort it took was betrayed by the vibrato that crept into her voice as high-lying phrases had to be repeated again and again.
As The Stranger, Park was as alert and taut as a modern-day action figure. He was puzzled by his success and the situation at the castle, yet proud of his accomplishment. There was nothing tentative regarding Park’s singing. He commanded the stage when giving voice to The Stranger’s philosophical musings over the relationship between dreaming and waking and in his vivid account of his quest to find Thorn Rose.
As the Court Poet, baritone Brian Major was officious and impatient in trying to keep the narrative on track in the first act. Thorn Rose’s four godmothers were deliciously brought to life in vivid characterizations by Robin Bier, Annalise Dzwonczyk, Maren Montalbano, and Sophia Santiago. The chorus is central to the story, performing not only as an ensemble but also with individual choristers assuming roles as the castle’s inhabitants. They, too, crafted distinct characterizations complete with quirks and foibles.
Conductor Corrado Rovaris was masterful in creating a seamless musical soundscape in which the sonorities of acoustic instruments are punctuated by the recorded sounds of clocks ticking and chiming. In the minimalist-inspired passages, each repetitive thrust propelled the action forward. When introspection was necessary, Rovaris provided the clarity of sound and space for Burrows and Park to be their most expressive in an opera where time is suspended and the romance of a fairy tale is upended.
