Mark Adamo’s “Late Victorians” comes from the large body of musical works that somehow or other address AIDS. Composers — primarily if not exclusively gay composers — have been grappling with the subject for 25 years now. According to my research for the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, the first work in the genre was “Inquiries of Hope: Ten Poems of Kirby Congdon” (1984) by the late Louis Weingarden. The list continues to grow, as Ricky Ian Gordon has just released a CD of “Green Sneakers” (2007) a response to his partner’s death. The most famous of them all, at least in the classical realm, is probably John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1 “Of Rage and Remembrance.”
Adamo, who happens to be Corigliano’s partner, wrote “Late Victorians” in 1994 and revised it in 2007, presumably in advance of this new Naxos recording, made that same year by the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, a Washington DC-based group conducted by Sylvia Alimena. There’s beautiful music here and it receives a handsome performance, with narration by political commentator Andrew Sullivan and singing by soprano Emily Pulley. There’s a certain lonely isolation to the gentle orchestral writing and the “Late Victorian” idea suggests those colorful row houses, the “painted ladies,” unique to San Francisco, where the plague hit so hard.
But I just don’t get Adamo’s concept, specifically the mix of texts and their means of delivery. Sullivan’s narration, drawn from a 1990 essay by Richard Rodriguez for “Harpers,” is interwoven with the singing of Pulley who intones poetry of Emily Dickenson, except when she’s echoing Rodriguez’s words.
Early in the piece, Sullivan’s gentle voice quietly ruminates on single men living alone in urban apartments. But then the full-voiced Pulley swoops down in dialogue. The disparity brought to mind sickly little Prior Walter alone in his bedroom in “Angels in America” when the massive female angel bursts through the ceiling above him. Yet the angel had something to say and the characters wrestled, literally and figuratively. In this piece, the two characters, if they can be called that, often just commiserate. If the idea is to form a bridge between historical eras, their languages are too similar.
A bit of hope and consolation comes in the final minutes (one of many occasions on this disc that bring to mind the music of Leonard Bernstein). It’s not that I think a piece about AIDS needs to be uplifting or have any other emotional goal. A vivid depiction of the darkest era can be enough. It’s just that the juxtaposition of spoken male voice and operatic soprano is so extreme that it seems to call out for some metaphorical purpose and even after repeated listenings it’s not clear what that is.
The rest of the disc presents a series of short, attractive pieces for orchestra. The best of them is “Regina Coeli,” an excerpt from Adamo’s 2006 harp concerto titled “Four Angels.” With the movement’s positioning on the disc right after “Late Victorians,” it serves as an eloquent, rather somber kind of postlude. But it would have been nice to have the whole concerto in order to hear where else Adamo takes it, especially since the harp writing in this single movement, played by Dotian Levalier (principal of the National Symphony), is so subdued.
In the four-minute Overture to Adamo’s 2005 opera “Lysistrata,” there’s a general feeling of adventure with lots of snatches of tunes that presumably appear in the opera. It rattles on a bit, but provides some of the only genuinely lively music on the disc, especially in the final bars, which are infused with bongos and some metallic percussion and even more obvious references to Bernstein. (In Adamo’s notes, he does credit Lenny’s Overture to “Candide” as an inspiration.)
Finally, “Alcott Music” is a 16-minute suite from Adamo’s first opera, the knock-out success “Little Women” (1998). The three movements are “Jo,” “Meg” and “Alma and Gideon.” This piece, too, was revised for the recording from an earlier incarnation titled “Alcott Portraits.” Adamo rightly calls it a souvenir from the opera, but in his notes he also points to the opera’s “orchestral reticence.” And that’s a fair assessment of this suite. It’s sweet and heartfelt, maybe a tad nostalgic, and rather forgettable. It could fit nicely beside some more vigorous pieces on an orchestral program and be a balm to audiences frightened of anything contemporary. But coming at the end of this already quite soothing disc, it’s pretty forgettable.
Adamo’s next major project is an opera on Mary Magdalene for the San Francisco Opera in 2013. After the light charm of “Little Women” and the farcical humor of “Lysistrata” – all of which comes through on this disc — perhaps that new topic might inspire music with more bite.
