Openly gay composer Jake Heggie laments the fact that he's never experienced his chamber opera Three Decembers as an audience member. Nor will Heggie see Three Decembers when it has its Windy City premiere via Chicago Opera Theater at Millennium Park's Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
"The whole orchestra is on the stage throughout the piece," said Heggie, who revealed that he played one of two pianos in the production during its 2008 premiere at Houston Grand Opera and its later San Francisco Opera production in Berkeley, Calif. The same applies in Chicago.
"Conductor Stephen Hargreaves will be playing piano, too, and conducting and I'll be at the first piano just opposite him," said Heggie via a phone interview in Texas.
The intimate scale of Three Decembers is a change for the 49-year-old composer, who just successfully premiered his new grand opera Moby Dick based upon the Herman Melville epic for Dallas Opera May 1. ( An early review from the Associated Press was an all-out rave. )
Heggie is most famous for his first opera, co-written with gay playwright Terrence McNally. Dead Man Walking is based upon Sister Helen Prejean's memoir looking at the death penalty in America and the Tim Robbins film adaptation. After it premiered at San Francisco Opera in 2000, Dead Man Walking has gone on to be one of most successful American operas of the last decade with more than 100 performances in international productions on four different continents.
"Of the four operas I've written in the past 10 years: Dead Man Walking, The End of the Affair, Three Decembers and now Moby Dick; they're now all completely different scale and different requirements and I feel that they explore different themes in different ways musically and theatrically. One of the reasons is that I live in dread just sitting there and repeating myself over and over." Heggie said. "And pragmatically it makes sense to have pieces of different sizes that can be done in different size spaces for different requirements. I want the work to be done."
Just because Three Decembers is Heggie's smallest-scale work with only three characters and 11 instruments, Heggie says that it was still difficult to write since it "tells this powerful family story that's also a theater story."
The opera had its origins in a piece written by McNally that was performed in a 1999 New York Gay Men's Chorus holiday concert. Interspersed between Christmas carols was a drama of a famous actress and her strained relationship with her grown children, one of whom is gay and whose partner is dying of AIDS.
"The original was only about 14 pages long," Heggie said. "But I thought it merited being fleshed out because it moved and inspired me very much."
McNally was unavailable at the time to adapt his play into an opera libretto, so Gene Scheer was brought aboard to write the libretto.
"It's a quest for identity within a family and your identity outside of a family context," Heggie said. "So often families consist of strangers with the same last name, and as a gay man myself, I've spent my entire life with a question of identity."
As a young man, Heggie was married to pianist Johana Harris. They separated in 1993. Now Heggie currently resides in San Francisco with his husband, Curt Branom. ( They wed in 2008. )
Heggie also had some interesting twists in his career as a musician. His ambitions as a pianist were felled when he developed localized dystonia ( a movement disorder ) in his hands at the age of 28. Heggie then turned his attentions to working in public relations for San Francisco Opera while composing art songs for singers like Frederica von Stade.
Based upon the strength of these works, San Francisco Opera General Director Lofti Mansouri appointed him composer in residence for the company. The strong bond Heggie developed with von Stade shows in her choice of works to retire from staged opera.
The Chicago performances of Three Decembers are slated to be von Stade's final Chicago staged opera performances, while her Houston farewell will be in Heggie's Dead Man Walking ( von Stade will appear as Despina in Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutti for Ravinia Festival this summer, but that is a run of concert performances ) .
"I feel greatly privileged that we are having the chance to bring her here for this opening," said Chicago Opera Theater general director Brian Dickie. " ( von Stade is a ) great iconic American singer who was a dominant force amongst professional singers in this country over the last 35 years."
Heggie feels it's important for opera to address current societal issues in his works, which is why he's proud to feature a gay character in Three Decembers. Heggie also hints that his future works will also feature gay characters.
"We are part of the world and our stories matter, too," Heggie said. "There are very powerful stories to be told and I frankly know more families with gay family members than not."
Three Decembers starring Frederica von Stade plays 7:30 p.m. May 8, 12 and 14 with a 3 p.m. matinee May 16 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph. Tickets are $30-$120. A special concert titled An Evening with Frederica von Stade and Jake Heggie is 7:30 p.m. May 10 and tickets to this event are $25-$80. Call 312-704-8414 or visit www.chicagooperatheater.org for more information.
Corigliano in Chicago
Another widely acclaimed American gay composer will be celebrated locally. Northwestern University in Evanston is shining a spotlight on John Corigiliano this month with a mini-festival of performances and master classes on campus from May 12 through May 30.
Corigliano is famous for his 1991 Symphony No. 1 which focused on the AIDS crisis, and for his 1999 Academy Award-winning film score for The Red Violin.
Corigliano is also celebrated for his early 1990s "grand opera buffa" The Ghosts of Versailles, which previously played at the Metropolitan Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Corigliano recently scaled down the opera for more mid-size companies to be able to produce it.
For more information on the John Corigliano Festival, visit www.pickstaiger.org or call 847-467-4000.
