Review: Gay Love in the Time of McCarthy

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/arts/music/review-fellow-travelers-cincinnati-opera.html

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CINCINNATI — During a State Department Christmas party midway through “Fellow Travelers,” a new opera based on that Thomas Mallon novel, an office worker confides a piece of gossip to her boss: “They fired Bobby Carter. For being in the wrong bar.”

Welcome to the McCarthy era and its “lavender scare,” which swept homosexuals into the wider dragnet intended for Communists and other “subversives.” That’s the claustrophobic setting of this heart-wrenching yet musically lucid drama by the composer Gregory Spears, with a libretto by the playwright Greg Pierce that illuminates a painful chapter of gay history. Sunday’s matinee marked a mere week since the latest and bloodiest chapter of that history, when scores of people died at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

Opera is a slow-moving art form and not usually quick to reflect on current events. Yet here, for the second time in a week, I watched a new opera offer a perspective on the latest headlines. A few days before, I had seen “Shalimar the Clown” at the Opera Theater of St. Louis, with its disaffected protagonist turned jihadist. The events in Orlando, Fla., amplified the resonance of that opera, just as they sharpened the poignancy of “Fellow Travelers,” which Cincinnati Opera is presenting at the Aronoff Center for the Arts here. Also worth noting: Despite content advisories displayed on the company’s website and in the lobby, a small handful of audience members left the auditorium when the male leads began to kiss and undress.

The plot follows the relationship between two men working for the federal government. At the start of the opera, Timothy Laughlin, a recent college graduate from a pious Irish Roman Catholic family, is approached by the suave and confident Hawkins Fuller, a State Department official. Hawk, as he’s known, helps Tim get a job in a senator’s office and initiates a love affair that is Tim’s first, indelible taste of sexual fulfillment.

Hawk’s assistant, Mary, keeps a sympathetic eye on the romance, but she is an exception in a world where homophobia and paranoia are pervasive and the cost of being found out is high. Hawk is subjected to a humiliating interrogation, but passes a lie-detector test. Still, the pressure takes its toll on the men’s relationship. Hawk, naturally promiscuous and more than a little manipulative, doesn’t want the cozy monogamy that Tim yearns for. It’s only a matter of time until someone is betrayed.

The opening act is a near-perfect example of fast-flowing musical drama. The budding attraction between Tim and Hawk has all the infectious warmth, humor and sweetness of the early scenes in “La Bohème.” The music, libretto and sure-handed stage direction by Kevin Newbury create a tidal pull that rushes the action along and the audience’s sympathies with it. But about halfway in, that fizzy energy dissipates and the opera turns more introspective and complicated. The overtly political context recedes somewhat, and the opera becomes more of a character study of incompatible temperaments and self-sabotaging urges that makes for a slower but satisfyingly nuanced final act.

Mr. Spears’s music is characterized by the tonal freshness and propulsive momentum of Minimalism. But his vocal writing is charmingly idiosyncratic, alert to the revealing irregularities of speech in dialogue and, in arias, animated with squiggly ornaments reminiscent of the early Baroque. The instrumental texture, too, is a mix of crisp repeated patterns and sensual wind solos, which the orchestra, under the baton of Mark Gibson, plays with pliancy and style.

The musical reflection of human speech and its psychological fluctuations are sometimes stunningly faithful. Aaron Blake brings an appealingly vulnerable, clear-toned tenor to Tim’s early appearances that are exquisitely calibrated. He rendered the trusting nervousness of his first encounter with Hawk on a park bench, the overeager jitters of his job interview — with vocal jumps overshooting their targets — and the heart-in-throat stammer he produces under the appraising gaze of Hawk’s female office staff.

Joseph Lattanzi was splendid as Hawk, his buttery baritone luxuriant and robust. In a cast dominated by men, the soprano Devon Guthrie, as Mary, stood out for her opulent but weightless tone and the grace with which she negotiated the fanciful embellishments Mr. Spears writes into her part.

A number of fine singers took on multiple supporting roles, among them the baritone Vernon Hartman, foxlike as Tim’s employer, Senator Charles Potter. Louche trombone notes introduce the character of Senator Joseph McCarthy, one of several roles sung by the glinting, muscular baritone Marcus DeLoach. The pert soprano Talya Lieberman played the cheerfully oblivious Lucy, who becomes Hawk’s wife.

Mr. Newbury drew impressively vivid performances from a cast of excellent actors and maintained tension through swift scene changes. The spare, sophisticated sets by Vita Tzykun helped pull together the political and the personal spheres.

With its smart music and sharp-edged romantic drama, “Fellow Travelers” seems assured of lasting appeal. But the large clusters of audience members who stayed behind in the lobby after Sunday’s performance discussing and analyzing the show suggest that — at this moment in time, in particular — it offered much more than mere entertainment.