Welcome to the 21st Century

Eurydice (Erin Morley) in the Underworld

The Metropolitan Opera has finally turned a new leaf. This season the Met is featuring not one but three contemporary operas: “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” Eurydice” and “Hamlet.” Fortunately Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, unlike his predecessor James Levine, champions new music, so we can look forward to more of the same in seasons to come.

Last Saturday I attended a performance of “Eurydice,” with music by Matthew Aucoin and libretto by Sarah Ruhl based on her play of the same title. While there have been many retellings of the Orpheus myth in literature, drama, opera and ballet, this work has a special slant—we view the story through Eurydice’s eyes, and her tie to the Underworld ultimately proves stronger than that to her husband. Although I have some reservations about the music, there’s no doubt this opera benefits greatly from an excellent production directed by Mary Zimmerman, and above all, a superlative cast of singers headed by Erin Morley in the title role, Joshua Hopkins as Orpheus, Jakob Józef Orlinski as his double, Nathan Berg as Eurydice’s father and Barry Banks as a marvelously malevolent Hades.

One problem is apparent from the outset—Aucoin employs a large orchestra which results in a very dense sound at times. The unfortunate result is too much bombast in the first few scenes to the extent that key elements are lost in the house. It’s difficult to hear Erin Morley when she’s not above the staff, and the wonderful effect of having the countertenor sound of Orpheus’s double surround the baritone vocal lines is inaudible (It was only when I attended the encore presentation of the HD telecast that I was able to hear these singers in full during the beginning of the opera). While there are some interesting arias and set pieces along the way, especially the wedding dance and Eurydice’s scenes with Hades, it isn’t until the third act that music and libretto coalesce. The orchestration is more transparent, the music becomes more lyrical, we finally hear Orpheus’s song, Eurydice’s father says farewell to memory and most heartbreakingly, Eurydice writes a letter to Orpheus with advice to his next wife in the most touching aria of the opera. I would have liked more of this contemplative style earlier in the work.

Will Liverman as Charles in “Fire Shut Up in My Bones”

A world away from “Eurydice” (literally), Terrence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which opened the Met’s current season. has received much critical acclaim and rightly so. With a libretto by Kasi Lemmons based on Charles Blow’s memoir of the same title, the work is a cohesive whole, gaining in strength throughout and culminating in an absolutely perfect third act. Along the way there’s so much to admire: the embodiment of Loneliness singing with a blues-y tinge (nothing beats a good musical pun); the gorgeous ballet music that opens the second act; yes, the show-stopping step dance routine that opens the third act; the lyrical love duet of Charles and Greta, his college girlfriend; and the culmination of Charles’s journey with the line “Mama, I’ve got something to tell you,” as he finally opens up about the molestation he suffered at the age of seven by his cousin. As with “Eurydice,” Yannick Nézet-Séguin led the opera, and the singers, Will Liverman (Charles), Walter Russell III (Char’es-Baby), Angel Blue (Destiny,/Loneliness/Greta) and Latonia Moore (Charles’s mother, Billie) could not have been better (I would gladly listen to Ms. Moore sing the phone book, but I’d much rather hear her in “Il Trovatore.” Peter Gelb, you listening?)

Brett Dean’s “Hamlet” is still to come, and we can look forward to the presentation of another Terence Blanchard opera, “Champion,” during the next Met season. The good news is that audiences are responding—several performances of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” sold out, including the one I attended, and more opera goers were in the house for “Eurydice” than at the performance of “Boris Godunov” I saw in October. Let’s hope the interest continues.

Dopesick

CAUTION–SPOLIERS ABOUND

One of the best series I’ve seen in a long time is Hulu’s “Dopesick,” based on the book of the same name by Beth Macy. It explores the many aspects of the opiod crisis, specifically the creation, marketing, prescribing and effect of Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin on those who became addicted to it as well as their families, friends and communities. Fortunately Ms. Macy co-wrote the series with Danny Strong, who has gone from acting the hapless Jonathan in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to becoming an Emmy-winning writer and producer. He and Ms. Macy should dust off their respective mantles now, because more statuettes will probably be headed their way, courtesy of this show.

Just one caveat about this series: at times it will break your heart.

Shifting between the late 1990’s to the present day, “Dopesick” covers a wide spectrum: the activities at Purdue Pharma, both at the executive and marketing levels; the practice of a physician (Michael Keaton) in a mining community in western Virginia; the eventual addiction of an injured miner (Kaitlyn Dever) and its impact on her family; and the investigations into Purdue’s activities separately conducted by a DEA deputy director (Rosario Dawson) and a pair of dogged Assistant U.S. Attorneys (Peter Sarsgaard and John Hoogenakker).

No punches are pulled with respect to Purdue or the crisis it caused; we see all the half-truths, outright lies and evasions they used to promote OxyContin, not to mention the “grants” they made to hush the opposition and the jobs they offered to those regulators who were in a position to put the brakes on this drug. Was it cynicism or shrewd marketing that caused Purdue to focus on selling to areas like Appalachia? And when their newly hired expert opines that the issue is not addiction but under-prescribing for pain so that dosages should be doubled, your jaw may well drop. All of this of course resulted in billions of dollars in Purdue’s coffers. If the face of this tragedy, Purdue President Richard Sackler (played by Michael Stuhlbarg), had had a mustache, we might have seen him twirling it. But “Dopesick” makes it very clear that Purdue had a prime enabler in its corner—the F.D.A. which consistently minimized the risks of OxyContin, bought Purdue’s line that less than 1% of the drug’s users became addicted, and in fact approved that labelling for the product in an unprecedented move.

This is a very smart show, many scenes of which will stay in memory. When Peter Sargaard’s character rallies his employees to keep digging for evidence against Purdue, you can’t help but flash back to scenes of that company’s marketing director revving up his sales force by offering trips to Bermuda to the rep who produces the highest dollar volume in sales. When Rosario Dawson’s DEA character, overcome with victory after scoring points against Purdue at a meeting, screams into a ladies’ room mirror, “I’ve got you now, motherf****ers!,” you cheer. But the down sides are many. It’s very difficult watching Michael Keaton’s character get hooked on OxyContin after being injured in a car accident, but even worse, seeing him steal drugs from his own patients. By the time he gets clean and pursues therapy, his guilt over prescribing the drug is overwhelming.

But the story that resonates the most belongs to young Betsy. Prescribed OxyContin to cope with the pain of a back injury she sustained in a mining accident, she soon becomes addicted. The worst follows in short order: she’s so stoned at work that she causes a serious accident and is fired; she loses her girlfriend; she steals her mother’s jewelry to hock it for drug money; she trades sex for drugs. Her religious parents (in tremendous performances by Mare Winningham and Ray McKinnon), who had previously thrown her out of the house for admitting she was gay, do a complete reversal by inviting her now ex-girlfriend to participate in an intervention; her strict father tearfully tells her “We just want you to get well.” Would that it were so.

There’s very little to fault in “Dopesick.” The performances are uniformly excellent, and the story merits its eight episodes. I highly recommend it.