SEATTLE — Jubilee, the new, spiritual-rich opera about the early years of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, opened at Seattle Opera on Oct. 12 for an eight-performance run. Created and directed by Tazewell Thompson, whose operatic collaboration with composer Jeanine Tesori, Blue, won the 2020 MCANA Best New Opera Award, the work features vocal arrangements, additional music and lyrics by Dianne Adams McDowell, and orchestrations by Michael Ellis Ingram.
The opera’s chronological narrative begins in 1871, as 13 members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers begin to warm up for their concert of spirituals in a theater in Nashville. (The actual number of student singers at Fisk University was nine, but as some came and went, 13 performed during the ensemble’s original incarnation.) Over the course of 128 minutes, we hear more than 40 spirituals as the singers’ three initial tours take them across the United States to the White House, Queen Victoria’s Buckingham Palace, back to the U.S.A., and back again to England.
Despite multiple hardships, including physical assault and virtually deplorable lodging and food conditions, the singers managed to raise today’s equivalent of four and a half million dollars for the school. The Fisk Jubilee Singers continued to sing and tour until 1878, two years after their fundraising enabled the construction of the university’s first permanent structure, Jubilee Hall. In 1879, a new Jubilee Singers ensemble was formed, and it continues in the 21st century.
The work’s narrative line doesn’t stop in 1878, however. Near the end, the story projects into the future, placing the singers in Harlem’s Apollo Theatre. Playing a bit loose with facts, the singers gather around a wind-up phonograph to hear their “first” recording, “Set Down, Servant.” (The all-male Fisk Jubilee Quartet made a Fisk University ensemble’s first acoustic recording, of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” in 1909.)
At the opera’s end, each singer shares a brief, moving spoken summary of their life. That many were born enslaved, or to enslaved parents, was not lost on the extremely sympathetic audience. Although different versions of those biographies appeared in the program, the most amusing aspects of singer Isaac Dickerson’s 48 years on the planet were saved for the opera itself.
Rather than following the classic operatic formula that opens each act with an overture before punctuating arias with sung recitative and, in some cases, dialogue, Thompson and his collaborators eschew sung dialogue and instead alternate spirituals (in excerpt or full) with spoken dialogue. While they do include first- and second-act overtures, spirituals form the backbone of their music.
Tazewell’s challenge was to somehow stitch together more than three dozen spirituals without making the opera seem little more than a pastiche. His solution was to weave the two together in a manner that allows the action to demonstrate each spiritual’s raison d’être. For this reason, spirituals of hardship, pain, loss, grief, and faith that transcends adversity dominate the opera’s first and more powerful half. As the timeline moves forward and the singers achieve success, the spirituals become far more celebratory in nature.
Despite the many compelling insights afforded by this fabric of music and dialogue, the lack of a consistently compelling dramatic arc with an emotionally gripping climax and denouement often leaves Jubilee feeling like an excuse to present a large number of spirituals in an operatic venue. This is especially true in the second act, in which one spiritual follows another with little dialogue in between. As a dramatically potent opera, Jubilee is less than the sum of its parts.
This is not to discount the potency of the story, nor its operatic elements. The beating sequence, which showed the all-Black cast at its acting finest, was especially powerful. So, too, were the amusing interjections of spoken dialogue. Lisa Arrindell, who seamlessly shifted from her primary role as singer Ella Sheppard to an overly effusive and cluelessly offensive white socialite (and then to the blatantly racist enthusiasm of a supportive Queen Victoria), provided many of the opera’s extended spoken highlights. Another came from soprano Aundi Marie Moore, who played an ultra-diva who can barely tolerate forgoing solo parts to subsume her ego for the good of the whole.
At the opening matinee, sound reinforcement, mainly employed to boost spoken dialogue and sound effects but also used for certain singers, left those voices sounding strangely disembodied. When in Act II an ensemble showing by the cast’s six male members preceded a similar turn by the seven female members, it was impossible to tell if the men’s voices were actually weaker or if they had received less sound reinforcement than the women’s.
Most singers were outstanding. Tenor Martin Bakari (Greene Evans) and soprano Tiffany Townsend (America Robinson) received the most applause for their solo turns, but virtually every voice stood out. Again, it was impossible to tell if some voices were stronger than others, or if the strongest voices even benefited from sonic reinforcement. The inconsistency of reinforcement and sound quality left some died-in-the-wool vocal aficionados in varying states of despair.
Conductor Kellen Gray and creator-director Thompson kept the action moving and the eye and ear engaged. Orchestral sound where I sat was rather flat, but the balance between instruments and vocalists seemed ideal (even if some of the balance was achieved via Robertson Witmer’s sound design).
The central two-thirds of set designer Donald Eastman’s minimal backdrop consisted of a flat screen on which projection designer Shawn Duan’s static images changed frequently. Lighting designer Robert Wierzel’s colors were for the most part muted and sometimes changed during spirituals to convey emotional shifts. The approach was far more de rigueur than innovative, but it was effective enough. Props were minimal and usually consisted of little more than simple wooden chairs. Harry Nadal’s costumes were period-correct, but, like the background projections and stage illumination, devoid of brilliance. You can get a decent sense of the staging (minus the backdrop) here.
McDowell’s music and Ingram’s orchestrations were quite lovely, and Ingram aptly succeeded in enhancing rather than obscuring the melody line. Nonetheless, the occasional glitziness that surfaced during orchestral segments betrayed their creators’ roots in musical theater. It all contributed to the feeling of an opera that wasn’t quite an opera.
