Festival Opera is presenting a double-bill this weekend: three performances in the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, of Gustav Holst's Savitri and Jack Perla's River of Light.
The Planets composer Holst wrote Savitri in 1909 to his own libretto; it was first performed a century ago. A role-reversing version of the approximately contemporary Orpheus legend, the story from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata is about the wife of the woodman Satyavan who is claimed by Death and so she -- alone and desolate -- welcomes Death herself. Moved by compassion, Death gives in to her pleading, revives the husband, and reunites the couple.
The program is conducted by John Kendall Bailey, an advocate of new works as well as a lifelong fan of Savitri. The production features soprano Maya Kherani in the title role, Jorge Garza as Satyavan, bass baritone Philip Skinner as Death, and a wordless female chorus. Tanya Kane-Parry, from Southern California directs and the choreographer is Antonia Minnecola, both making their company debuts.
Bailey says of the influences on the work:
Holst was a devoted follower of Wagner in the 1890s. His overblown first attempt at bringing Indian legend to the operatic stage was Sita, which was quite obviously Wagnerian. He gradually broke away from that and found more of his own voice (his fascination with Indian music and mythology and English folksong certainly helped redirect him). After all, there's that quote of his, via his daughter Imogen, about how one ought to follow Wagner until he leads you to fresh things.
I find Holst to be an innovator and somewhat of a maverick in English music. Savitri begins with three minutes of a cappella singing, and also ends a cappella. I can't think of another work within decades of this piece that does so. His chamber scoring was rather unusual for the time. His use of wordless women's chorus in Savitri (and later in The Planets) is striking and unique. There are still stretches of the opera which contain echoes of Tristan, but the whole nature of the piece is the polar opposite of Wagner and Strauss -- brief in duration, and small in size, scope, and orchestration."
Bay Area composer and pianist Perla's River of Light, written with librettist and bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, received its world premiere with Houston Grand Opera last year, featuring Kherani there, as Festival Opera's West Coast premiere will here. The story is about Indian immigrant Meera, who loves her new husband, her high-powered job, and the Houston lifestyle until the birth of her daughter makes her long to recreate, in her home, traditions of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.
Drawing extensively on North Indian ragas, the orchestra mixing Western instruments with sitar (played by Arjun Verma) and the tabla (Nilan Chaudhuri), the opera also features dances choreographed by Antonia Minnecola, an American artist recognized as a leading exponent of North Indian Kathak dance.
Bailey says Perla's "contemporary, relevant opera works wonderfully with Savitri, both combining elements of East and West, Perla presenting the literal marriage of Indian and American characters onstage, the mingling of sitar and tabla with strings and keyboard. These two stories together give a emotional and sensitive window into Indian traditions, from ancient legend to the present day in this country.