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American composer Douglas Moore's popular operetta The Ballad of Baby
Doe had a successful run at the New York City Opera (NYCO) this spring,
attracting the Broadway crowd, fans of American opera, and a few nostalgic
souls who recall seeing Beverly Sills in the part.
Set in Colorado in the late 1800s, the work is a historical soap opera
based on a true story, but without much in the way of intrigue or character
development. The unsophisticated plot unites an airhead gold digger (or
in this case, silver digger) named Baby Doe with a millionaire mine owner
named Horace Tabor in a rags to riches story with a predictably tuneful
score. The fact that Baby Doe worshipped Tabor's memory (and ephemeral
silver) until she died alone in a mountain cabin adds bathos if not pathos
to the story. Even the New York Times noted that Baby Doe "lacks some
basic dramatic and musical qualities and appears today less timeless than
merely dated."
The pretty and pert American soprano Elizabeth Futral did what she could
with the bird-brained title role. American baritone Mark Delavan, the
City Opera’s leading baritone, was convincing as the tender-hearted, cardboard-cutout
capitalist Horace Tabor. Joyce Castle’s gritty soprano was right for Tabor’s
long-suffering wife Augusta.
I attended this performance to hear Canadian soprano Cheryl Hickman’s
New York City Opera debut (she was kind enough to supply me with a ticket
when the New York City Opera press office refused to accredit me). Unfortunately,
Hickman’s role as one of Augusta’s cronies was too small to relish her
great gifts. Many of us predict that Hickman is a major Wagnerian soprano
in the making. I look forward to hearing her in a more substantial role.
Colin Graham's production, first seen in San Francisco in September
2000, had Bonanza/Gunsmoke sets with nice pastel mountains silhouetted
in the background, reminiscent of the Metropolitan Opera’s sets for Floyd’s
opera Susanna. The orchestra played the melodic score fluently.
Baby Doe is a crowd pleaser because it celebrates the basic American dreams/values/dilemmas
of the self-made man, politics (in this case Tabor’s senatorial bid and
the presidential campaign of William Jennings Bryan), capitalism, and
adultery. It also has local appeal since beloved soprano, former New York
City Opera manager, and current Lincoln Center president Beverly Sills
starred in the City Opera's first production of Doe in 1958. No one seems
to care that the this opera's central metaphor of Baby Doe as Tabor's
"silver dollar" is an unapologetic objectification and commodification
of woman. I find this kind of "art" hard to swallow.
> New York City Opera
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