It's a Wonderful Life (an opera review post)

Wait, what? Opera review? It's a Wonderful Life is a movie, not an opera!
Don't worry; it's still a movie but, now, it's also an opera.
And, of movies that could be turned into operas, It's a Wonderful Life is, on many levels, the perfect choice. It's also a very daunting choice. I mean, the movie is beloved by so many people... It's a fine line to tread to reproduce something in another medium to the satisfaction of people who love it in its original medium and, yet, make it attractive to people who have no association with it. It's why adapting books can work so well. The percentage of readers is usually small enough that it doesn't matter if they like an adaptation or not. But taking a beloved movie, a movie that millions of people watch every year... Well, that's another story entirely.

And let's just get it out of the way:
I love It's a Wonderful Life, which has nothing to do with it being a Christmas movie (because, let's face it; it's not) and everything to do with loving Jimmy Stewart. And this isn't even my favorite Jimmy Stewart movie, just the one I've watched the most and the one that most people know him from. That said, I wouldn't want to be the one cast to fill his shoes in this operatic adaptation.

But before we get to that, does the opera make me want to partake of the source material? That's a much easier question to answer when you're not already familiar with the source material, just by the way. That said, I don't think the opera would have made me want to watch the movie if I hadn't already seen it. I could be wrong. However, we went to see this with a couple of friends who were both mostly unfamiliar with opera and had never seen the movie, and both of them said they felt like, now, they needed to see the movie. They both had a much greater positive reaction to the opera than I did, which could account for that, especially considering some of my lack of positive reaction came from places where I thought the adaptation was lacking.

The greatest area it was lacking was in its George Bailey. George was played by William Burden, who never felt George enough for me. In the movie, one of the main qualities about George is his enthusiasm, his excitement over all that he plans to do. That's really lacking in the opera and, instead, George comes off as seeming rather depressed through most of the opera, sad all the time. It gave the opera a melancholy feeling that the movie doesn't have. Being a story of hope, I think the melancholy dragged the opera down somewhat; at least, it did for me.

On the other hand, Andriana Chuchman really nailed Mary Hatch. She was a pleasure to watch and listen to.

On the other other hand, Rod Gilfry wasn't quite evil enough as Mr. Potter, though that probably wasn't his fault. He doesn't have enough stage time to let the audience know how despicable he is. We have to rely on George's pronouncement that Potter is like a fat spider in a web preying on everyone else as our measurement on how evil Potter is.

The music and singing were good but, overall, not very memorable. It never really soared, and it seems to me that there should have been opportunities for that. Then, again, I'm not a musician.

Then there's the stage...
SFO generally has great sets. You should know; I talk about them pretty much every time I do an opera review. But this one... Well, it was interesting and a great way to handle the first part of the story. The stage was full of doors floating out in space and was where the angels viewed George's life, where Clara (the angel sent to save George (rather than Clarence from the movie)) learns what she needs to know so that she can help George Bailey as he stands on the bridge ready to jump. And they had angels flying around the stage, too, which was really cool.

As they progressed through George's life, different doors would open and the actors would come out and act out the scenes of the important moments. It was really cool, like visions in space for the angels to watch.

The problem was that that was all there was. When they finally got up to "now" in the story and everything was progressing in the moment, the action was still happening in front of the doors. It made the ending seem less real than it should have. At least for me.

All of that said, I did enjoy the opera. It was good; it just wasn't great. And certainly not as great as I wanted it to be. It was something I was glad to see, but it's not an opera I'd go out of my way to see a second time. And, really, there's nothing wrong with that.

Look Homeward, Angel

My oldest son's newest drama production opened this past weekend: Look Homeward, Angel. The play is based on the book by Thomas Wolfe, which is considered a masterpiece of American literature. The play ran on Broadway for nearly 600 shows and won several awards. Most importantly, though, this was my son's first lead role.

He was in the role of 17-year-old Eugene Gant, a boy desperately wanting out from under his mother's controlling thumb but unsure of how to do that. That is until 23-year-old Laura James shows up at his family's boarding house. Without meaning to, my son completely channeled Jimmy Stewart for this role, and it was impressive. There's this one scene where Eugene is telling Laura the kinds of things you can feel and see by laying your hand on a train, the places you get pieces of, and it could have been that scene from It's a Wonderful Life where Stewart is talking about how he's going to see the world. Mostly, though, he takes that stammer and transforms it into a boy who is unsure of himself and how to get what he wants out of life. He was really quite good.

The rest of the cast was good, too, just mostly not as good. The girl who played Eugene's mother was probably as good, though I found her to get better as she moved through the play, which leads me to think that her performance in the first act may have been a little weak. The boy that played Eugene's father had moments where I thought Jim Carrey had stepped in for him.

Overall, I just continue to be impressed and more impressed with the drama department at my son's high school. They do good work and, most impressively, they do most of it themselves. They have a teacher there, but he seems to be there mostly to supervise and to prompt them to work it out for themselves. Whatever he does, he gets good stuff from the students.

Shadow Spinner News

Every year, the school my younger kids go to has an auction fund raising event. It's kind of a big deal as it accounts for the bulk of the school's funds every year. This year, I decided to donate one of my proof copies of Shadow Spinner to the auction. After all, I had an extra one, since no one won it back during the Greatest Chocolate in the World contest. Just to be clear, only three of these books exist: the one I'm using as my editing copy (that's got red marks all in it), the one my younger son stole from me, and the one I donated (signed). There will be no other proof copies like this as next time I order proofs, there will be cover art on the book.

I was kind of unsure about donating the book. I mean, although I have fans at the school, it's not a kid event, so it made me a bit uneasy. What if it just sat there and no one bid on it at all, you know? That would be, like, the height of embarrassment to have them bring it back to me after the auction with a "sorry, no one wanted it." But! I took it up and donated it anyway. I mean, even if someone paid $5.00 for it, that would be $5.00, right?

I had to fill in a retail value of the book on the donation form, so I put $12.00, because I think that's what it's going to be priced at in physical form. I think. The woman taking the book from me, though, told me I should point out on  the form that it was a proof copy and not something you could actually buy, so I wrote that in.

Now, I didn't go to the auction (because it was the same night as my son's opening performance in Look Homeward, Angel), so I'm not sure if that information was available to the public or not. I have no idea how the items were displayed and what information was included or anything (it was a silent auction), but I imagine it just sat on a table somewhere with a sheet of paper next to it for people to write their bids on. Just a plain gray book with no cover art sitting on a table.

And it went for $30.00. I'm pretty pleased with that. I hope it turns out to be a worthwhile investment for the family that got it.