Miss Julie

by Lou Camp

opera review

The celebrations of Ned Rorem's 80th birthday came to a head last Saturday with afternoon and evening performances by The Curtis Opera Theatre of his most ambitious opera, Miss Julie, based on Strindberg's 1888 play. The two performances featured different singers in the three principal roles, but all six were outstanding. Though there was some scrappy orchestral playing in the afternoon, conductor David Agler had them all in fine fettle for the evening.

The set, which garnered applause at both performances, might have called on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for inspiration, with a door at an acute angle and an upward-raked side of a house. The chorus on stage sang well and provided the classical social disapproval of the doings of the three main characters, but they had little to do after the opening dancing but move around in Swedish slo-mo. Meanwhile, there was an unbecoming costume for the two Miss Julies.

Rorem's music was, as always, adept, if perhaps without memorable motifs to hold things together. Small pointed brass snarls presaged crisis moments, and the strings rose hopefully, only to quiet down sadly. It is a solid piece of music -- ill-fitted, I think, to an old-fashioned play. For Strindberg's time has passed. He was a borderline social realist and a wannabe symbolist. John, the absent count's low-class valet, wants Miss Julie, the neurotic countess, and she just wants to have fun too, but the chorus won't let her. John wants to start a hotel (on Lake Como!), but needs her money. But they both have dreams -- he of a thick slimy trunk leading up to a golden egg. And she? She is on top of a pillar about to fall off and be swallowed up by the earth. Well, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, but not here.

The conclusion, in which John dumps the countess and she commits suicide, might have more impact if Miss Julie did something with the knife other than just holding it for the last five minutes of the opera.

Rorem is perhaps our greatest living composer, but neither this production nor the subject showed him to the best advantage.