Another Musical Review by Yours Truly

I know I referenced this in another blog that I wrote, but I just have to say it again, this period of opera after 1950 is so incredibly diverse it boggles my mind. There’s just an amazing amount of inspiration and experimentation happening at this time and its influence on composers is extremely apparent. Willie Stark is the fourth opera we have watched/listened to in class, and I have yet to feel like any one of these operas is particularly similar to the other. Of course one can always make comparisons, but overall, they are vastly different.

In regard to Willie Stark, I really enjoyed the music and the story line, and I thought that for the most part, one truly enhanced the other. There were however, some scenes when I found the music to be slightly dull, but there were some beautiful moments. I’m a big fan of Carlisle Floyd, Susannah is without a doubt one of the best operas I have ever listened to and I hope someday to actually be able to see it performed. I love his use of folk song, harmonies and melodic lines, and the way he marries the text and the music together is just so beautiful. I heard a lot of similarities in terms of the musical components of Willie Stark and Susannah, however, I feel like Willie Stark almost has a Sondheim type of feel. There were moments when there was spoken dialogue, and moments when the characters were undoubtedly singing, but there were also moments when the singers were doing sort of a mix between singing and speaking, but it didn’t really seem like recitative. It reminded me of moments from Sondheim’s Into the Woods and A Little Night Music. He writes these musical numbers that are songs, but have a very speech like quality to them. At times I felt like I could have used a little more lyricism, but overall, I really enjoyed this work.