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by John Beckwith, directed by Guillermo Silva-Marin

Toronto Operetta Theatre, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto

February 24-26, 2012

“Exiles are we”

Toronto Operetta Theatre made history by presenting the first-ever professional production of the 1995 opera Taptoo! by composer John Beckwith and librettist James Reaney.  The staging is part of the celebration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812 and looks at the war from a Canadian perspective, ending with the renaming of Toronto as York by Sir John Simcoe.  Beckwith’s music is wonderful in weaving so many references to popular music of the period into his own spare musical language and is beautifully played by a chamber orchestra conducted by the composer’s son, Larry Beckwith.  The cast rises superbly to the challenge of a more modern style of music that the TOT usually presents.  What holds the work back from becoming a classic of the Canadian repertoire is Reaney’s libretto which can be whimsical, digressive and often confusing.

When I first saw the opera in 2003 in a student production by the University of Toronto Opera Division directed by Michael Patrick Albano, I found it nearly impossible to follow the plot or make sense of Reaney’s point of view on the material.  Director Guillermo Silva-Marin has done a heroic job in clearing up these problems by forcing us to see that Reaney and Beckwith are attempting something in Taptoo! that is quite different from other forms of music theatre.  While most operas, even the grandest, tend to concern themselves with only a handful of principal characters, Reaney’s historical plays, with his trilogy The Donnellys (1973-75) as a prime example, concern the community at large rather than individuals.  As in The Donnellys, Reaney has a large cast play an even larger number of roles.  Here 18 singers play 26 roles.  This is a technique that works in spoken drama rather than in music drama because spoken drama has the luxury of a greater number of words per minute to establish characters and distinguish them from each other.  In an opera like Taptoo! where singers have to switch constantly between appearing as American rebels and as British Loyalists with minimal costume changes, following who is who and when can become quite difficult. 

Reaney’s libretto cover a time period from 1790 to 1812 and follows three generations of characters.  As in The Donnellys it seeks to portray a growing rift in a community until it emerges in all-out conflict.  Primarily as choral opera, individuals do not stand out so much as represent elements of the larger social and historical forces around them. 

The action begins, without sufficiently establishing the location, in New Jersey where American colonists are still protesting the British tea taxes.  A mob discovers that not only are Jesse Harple (Mark Petracchi) and his wife (Sarah Hicks) drinking tea at home but Harple, as a Quaker, refuses to doff his hat to the new American flag.  Assumed to be a Loyalist, he is taken off to be tarred and feathered.  The Harples’ flight after their home is burned to the ground, leaves their young son Seth (boy soprano Daniel Bedrossian) homeless.  He and another boy Ebenezer (boy soprano Teddy Perdikoulias) complete to become drummer boy for Colonel “Mad Anthony” Wayne (Robert Longo), who commanded the rebels against the Crown, but Ebenezer sabotages the competition but denouncing Seth as a traitor because of his father’s actions.  Seth finds more sympathetic company with Major John Graves Simcoe (Todd Delaney), where he learns the method of signalling the end of day taptoo (now known as a military “tattoo”). 

The second act begins with the trek of loyalists fleeing the American colonies for safety in what would become Upper Canada.  “Exiles are we”, the haunting chorus Beckwith gives them, is one of the musical highlights of the evening.  We discover, with some difficulty, that it is now twenty years later than in Act 1 and that Seth has now grown into a young man (Michael Barrett), married a native woman Atahentsic (Allison Angelo) and had a child (Daniel Bedrossian).  Ebenezer has now also grown up (as Gregory Finney) to become a member of the upper house of a legislative body Simcoe, now Lieutenant-Governor, established in Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake), the capital of Upper Canada.  Reaney obviously wants to continue the rivalry between the two boys, but this is rather far-fetched since Ebenezer is so rabidly pro-American one wonders why left the new American Republic.

What is rather disconcerting about Act 2 is the change in tone from heroic to satiric.  Simcoe’s wife Elizabeth (Eugenia Dermentzis) is a pretentious Brit who disdains the world around her.  Although Seth and Atahentsic have been married twice--one in a tribal ritual, once in a Methodist ceremony--she won’t regard them as truly married unless they have an Anglican wedding.  She looks as Atahentsic’s knowledge of nature and its healing power as quaint and is seemingly ignorant that the Six Nations of Iroquois had fled the American Republic along with the loyalists since they has fought for the British.  A dispute between Mrs. Simcoe and Mrs. Jarvis (Lise Maher) over how a ball should be conducted suggests, perhaps intentionally, that the Loyalists have untaken war and exile only to find themselves among stuffy Brits attempting to recreate British society along with its absurdities in the New World. 

In one telling scene, our supposed hero Simcoe does not come off well at all when he looks at a map of Upper Canada, asks Atahentsic the local place name and promptly renames everything after places in English--the Thames River, Essex County, including two places he names after his pet dogs.  His mania for obliterating local designations arrives when he decides to rename Toronto after the visiting Duke of York.  In another important scene he imposes a grid pattern on the landscape by creating the east-west Dundas Street and the north-south Yonge Street.  Silva-Marin is quite aware of the implications of this by having the streets marked by the stripes on the British flag on the stage floor.

After more than two-and-a-half hours we reach a conclusion that may be realistic in historical terms but is unsatisfying in dramatic terms.  Simcoe announces events that will lead to the outbreak of the War of 1812, whereupon the cast sings the final words of the opera, “We do we do now?”  Since Taptoo! was conceived as a prequel to Harry Somers’ opera Serinette (1990) to a libretto by Reaney that deals with the struggles within Upper Canada, that final question is answered.  However, presented on its own, it feels like a major letdown.  Yet, perhaps, it does distinguish a Canadian opera about founding a country from an American one since American founding myths are involved with its semi-divine nature as a heroic beacon of freedom (despite slavery) to all nations, whereas the Canadian view of the new country as a more equitable but not-so-safe haven and pale imitation of Britain can justifiably end in satire and doubt.

If there are difficulties with the libretto, there are none with the music.  Larry Beckwith consistently brought out the wit and pungency of his father score.  The 16-member orchestra played with passion and precision.  The placing of percussion on opposite sides of the arc of the Jane Mallett pit led to some remarkable stereo effects.  The TOT Chorus really outdid itself in its complete commitment to the music.  After the wide array of characters thrown at us in Act 1, it was a relief to have just a few of focus on in Act 2.  Here Barrett and Angelo shone as a young couple in love.  The strength and passion in both voices made one hope that their idealistic vision of Canada would eventually win out over the stuffy view of the likes of Mrs. Simcoe. 

Longo’s heroic baritone commanded every scene he was in making it a pity his character appears so seldom.  Delaney’s baritone is darker but he played Simcoe as a stolid almost pompous figure--perhaps to contrast with Major Wayne as a wayward rogue, perhaps to prepare us for the satiric bent of Act 2.  Both Bedrossian and Perdikoulias are fine boy sopranos.  Thankfully, Beckwith follows Britten’s example, and lightens the texture of the orchestration when they sing so they are better heard.

Given how imaginative the music and how well performed, one would hope in an ideal world that these performances would be recorded.  It has taken so long for the work to receive a professional performance, who knows when it will ever be revived?  The one consolation is that John Beckwith has lived long enough to the work performed, and it was fitting that the audience reserved its loudest applause for him. 

With Taptoo! the TOT has reached a new level of excellence.  Musically and dramatically this is probably the most difficult work the company has ever staged and it was marvellous to see it rise so confidently to the challenge to present the piece in the best possible light.  Silva-Marin already has enough to do as head of the TOT, Opera in Concert and the Summer Opera Lyric Theatre, but seeing Taptoo! made me wish that there were enough funding and enough interest for a company in Toronto that would stage at least one Canadian opera per year.  The vast majority of Canadian operas are chamber operas and would suit a theatre the size of the Jane Mallett.  Silva-Marin has made a virtue of necessity and has perfected for operetta a style of minimalist staging for maximum effect that could just as well be applied, as here, to opera.  One longs to know what new corners of the repertoire the TOT will explore next.               

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Chorus of Exiles. ©2012 Gary Beechey.

For tickets, visit www.soulpepper.ca.