Where have all the heroes gone?

We talked a bit about the lack of heroes in modern opera and what reasons might be behind their disappearance. I would argue that the heroes haven’t actually disappeared, they are just wearing new costumes and have decided against the capes.
In just about every good story, there is a protagonist, and an antagonist. There is change, a climax, and finally an ending. I think the biggest difference between stories of old and new are in our choices to fill the main roles. We’ve gone from stories of fantastical, mythological gods and demons, to the gods and demons we face in our everyday lives.

Bolcom’s story is no different. While all the characters are people we might know in our everyday lives, it isn’t so much about who they are at the beginning of the story as it is who they are at the end. The changes we watch them go through, the situations we see them live through, how they develop and cope makes them our heroes and villains.

With Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge, we find ourselves aligning against Eddie and rooting for Catherine and Rodolfo. These characters are not the archetypes we grew accustomed to seeing on the stage. They are not “black hat” and “white hat” characters. They are grey, how light or how dark that shade of grey is would be all that separates them as heroes or villains. We identify with them because they are so much closer to the things we know. Their clothes, they way they talk, even the uncomfortable situation they are all involved in is familiar, even if we haven’t actually experienced it.

I believe that stories like these set to music that is sensitively composed the way Bolcom’s is will be the future of American opera. I feel like Bolcom’s music is reminiscent of the type of music we would find on Broadway when musical theater was young. It gives us something that is easily accessible and unlike foreign opera, allows us as a culture to identify with it.