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| Lindsey Lefler and Tom Hamann in a scene at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall Cafe in Moscow |
Light Opera of Portland (LOoP) is offering a two-week world
premiere of the new musical We Met in
Moscow, a love story based on the actual experiences of Portland State University
Professor Emeritus Ralph Bunch and his late wife, Eleonora Andreevna. Bunch
commissioned LOoP Artistic Director Dennis Britten to write the book and
lyrics, with music by troupe member Kevin Lay, and the show is directed by
Britten with musical direction by Lay. I have co-written two musicals, and having
survived the bizarre highs and lows of the seeing my babies exposed for the
public, I know what a thrilling but excruciating experience it can be. The main
thing I learned from the experience is that any musical is extremely unlikely
to debut in its final form – for authors who are open to it, seeing their words
and music through the eyes and ears of an impartial audience highlights the
strengths and weaknesses in a way that table reads and rehearsal just cannot
do. It was in that spirit that I approached the opening night of We Met in Moscow, and in that spirit I
was neither surprised nor disappointed with the production.
The story is a lovely one – around 1990, middle aged PSU
Poly Sci professor Richard Ballad is nearing the end of a long marriage marked
by growing estrangement when he travels to Moscow, meets, and soon falls in
love with one of Russia’s premiere computer scientists, Eleonora Andreevna.
Both are still married, and when Richard returns to Portland neither has
admitted their feelings for the other. The long-distance relationship gradually
develops, helped along by Eleonora’s discovery of a rare viola in the
Tchaikovsky Museum that Richard buys for his son Hanzo. Richard eventually takes
a temporary teaching position in Moscow to be nearer to Eleonora. When Richard
develops a near-fatal case of meningitis in Russia, Eleonora intervenes to get
him the best medical care possible until he can safely return to the U.S. – but
she is unable to get a visa to come with him, and they cannot marry until his
divorce is finalized. Instead, Eleonora
moves to Vancouver, Canada, where Richard can visit regularly until they are
finally able to be married.
Neither the songs nor the script are 100% ready for prime
time, although the potential is definitely there. It’s a complicated story, and
some of Britten’s dialogue is unnecessarily expository and repetitive – often
we find the actors telling us how they feel, and why, instead of allowing the
key points to emerge organically. Lay’s music is consistently lovely, but at
times so complex that the orchestra and vocalists find it challenging to mesh –
in fact, one of the show’s songs was deleted after the dress rehearsal. Twenty
scenes (ten in each act) with lots of associated scene changes slow down the action,
and the extensive use of audience-level platforms at the far right and left
sometimes leaves us craning our necks to see what’s going on.
That said, the cast (many of them LOoP regulars) deliver
some fine performances. As Eleonora Andreevna, soprano Lindsey Lefler handles
even the most soaring high notes with aplomb, and she captures her character’s
grim resignation as the Soviet Union is collapsing yet shows traces of real
fire when love and hope come into her life. Tom Hamann (as Richard Ballad) provides
a nice contrast – never having been denied freedom, he has more of an American
“can-do” attitude, yet we see touches of the dulling effect his loveless
marriage has on his (pre-Eleonora) life.
I think I might have enjoyed Linh Nguyen’s broad take on the teenage
Hanzo had I been able to see him, but I was sitting front row, center and the
placement of his key scene on a platform beyond and below stage left meant that
even by craning my neck I could watch only his back. One of the finest moments
in the show arrives in a Scene One flashback where Eleonora’s mother, played by
Gabrielle Widman, comforts her nightmare tortured daughter with the haunting
and beautiful “Lullaby for Eleonora.”
As always with LOoP productions, the vocal ensemble work is
rich, powerful, and consistently lovely. Choreographer Rachel Brown has done an
admirable job of crafting performers with wildly variable skill levels into
competent dancers, although the stage gets dizzyingly full at times – this is a
case where fewer dancers would yield greater results. Given the number of
scenes (and the number of lamps on the stage) Carl Dahlquist does a remarkable
job working the lights, so we can forgive him for one slight (and pretty funny)
slip on a telephone sound cue (kudos to Widman for saving the day!). As
mentioned, the show has a complex score, and conductors Kevin Lay and Becca
Stuhlbarg ensure that the orchestra does full justice to Lay’s compositions.
Should you go? Yes, but only if you can bring an open mind
to the fact that you are seeing a work in many ways in its infancy. The
sometimes exquisite vocal and orchestral performances, combined with the bones
of a beautiful love story, will be adequate justification for those interested
in seeing a nascent work with so much room to grow.
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