Pearl: An Opera

• Composer Amy Scurria
• Libretto by Carol Gilligan and Jonathan Gilligan

Performances:

• Aug 5, 2013, Concert performance at Shakespeare & Company (Lenox MA).
  Maureen O’Flynn (soprano), John Bellemer (tenor), Marnie Breckenridge (soprano), John Cheek (bass-baritone), Michael Corvino (bass), Olivia Marchione (child soprano), Stephanie Otto Orvik (piano), Sara Jobin (conductor and producer)
• Mar 21, 2013, Excerpts performed at University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.
  John Bellemer (tenor), Li Xin (soprano), Wang Yang (bass-baritone), Lin Shu (soprano), Charmaine (child soprano)
• Mar 8, 2013, Excerpts performed at Greensboro Cultural Center Recital Hall (Greensboro, NC).
• Aug 13, 2012, Concert performance at Shakespeare & Company (Lenox, MA).
  Maureen O’Flynn (soprano), John Bellemer (tenor), Marnie Breckenridge (soprano), John Cheek (bass-baritone), Olivia Marchione (child soprano), John Demler (baritone), Jack Brown (baritone), Sara Jobin (piano, conductor, producer)
• Sept 11, 2011, Excerpts performed at UNC Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC).

About Pearl

Translating the play The Scarlet Letter to the opera Pearl began with Grammy Nominee Sara Jobin, the first woman to conduct the San Francisco Opera. Sara had grown weary of the opera canon, in which there were few strong women, and all too often the heroine died at the end. To remedy this, Jobin created the Different Voice Opera Project, which sponsored the development of this opera with award-winning young composer Amy Scurria

This opera focuses on Hester Prynne, Reverend Dimmesdale, and their daughter Pearl, and on the changes in Pearl’s perception of the events she witnessed as a child and what she comes to understand looking back on them as an adult. The challenges of living as a strong woman under patriarchy, and the basic tensions—between the private and public aspects of erotic relationships, between one’s role as a parent, as a lover, and as a citizen, and between moral codes and personal passion—are as fraught and important today as they were in the mid-seventeenth century.

Scurria has a remarkable melodic sense; Moments of remarkable tenderness are expressed between Dimmesdale and Prynne. The duet ‘If God is love, can love be sin’ was gripping and memorable, as was the limpid moment when he sings ‘Hester, take down your hair.’ Scurria’s lyrical writing and tenor John Bellemer’s sensitive singing as Dimmesdale brought out the wonderful musicality of the name ‘Hester Prynne’ - so lovingly phrased, evoking such tenderness in the name, that I wondered if this is a classic love song in the making, like Bernstein’s ‘Maria’.

— Liane Curtis, “A Bold Opera Experiment,” The Boston Musical Intelligencer

Excerpts:

The “A” Aria: [Pearl and Hester]

Maureen O’Flynn, soprano; Victoria Perl, child soprano; Sara Jobin, piano

“If God is Love, How Can Love Be Sin?” [Dimmesdale]

Maureen O’Flynn, soprano; John Bellemer, tenor; Stephanie Otto Orvik, Piano; Sara Jobin, conductor

“Mother, Tell Me the Truth!” [Hester, Adult Pearl, Child Pearl]

Maureen O’Flynn, soprano; Marnie Breckenridge, soprano; Olivia Marchione, child soprano; Stephanie Otto Orvik, Piano; Sara Jobin, conductor

Review

• Liane Carter, “A Bold Opera Experiment,” The Boston Musical Intelligencer. Aug. 17, 2012.

Radio Interview on WAMC radio

WAMC Radio interview with co-librettist Carol Gilligan, conductor Sara Jobin, and soprano Maureen O’Flynn