Northwestern Opera Theater sold out Ryan Opera Theater from Thursday to Sunday with four performances of “Proving Up,” a production based on the eponymous short story by Karen Russell (Weinberg ’03).
Written by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, “Proving Up” was first performed by the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center in 2018. The third collaboration between Mazzoli and Vavrek, the show was commissioned by the Kennedy Center through its American Opera Initiative to support opera promoting American themes.
The show follows a family that settles in Nebraska in search of a new life after the Homestead Act of 1862 made it possible for American citizens to claim 160 acres of land if they “proved up” by cultivating the land for five years, among other requirements. The opera questions whether the American dream is attainable. By some estimates, under 40% of settlers “proved up” in Nebraska, and many died in the process.
Second-year Bienen master’s student Alec Fore, who played the family’s younger son, Miles Zegner, described the opera as a good springboard for performers.
“I think some pieces are very molecular, and some are wide open,” Fore said. “This work really kind of hits that sweet spot where it guides you to telling that story but leaves enough for you to bring what you have to it as well.”
NU performs a small chamber opera each fall. Director Joachim Schamberger said these shows give voice students the opportunity to work on contemporary works in an intimate space.
Mazzoli and Vavrek were also directly involved in the rehearsal process, specifically helping actors learn their characters. Mazzoli, who is one of the most popular modern-day opera composers, remained in town as the shows ran over the weekend. In an industry that relies heavily on pieces written hundreds of years ago, Mazzoli said, having access to a living composer can be very influential for young singers.
As the operatic art form shifts to meet the demands of a changing industry, Mazzoli said, she believes opera will continue to thrive.
“Twenty years ago, when I graduated from college, there was not this thriving American opera community,” said Mazzoli. “And then this scene kind of came up, like in the late aughts, certainly where I was in New York City, and all of a sudden everyone was kind of writing these kinds of operas.”
“Proving Up” combines Americana style with Mazzoli’s distinctive atonal style, complete with a foreboding, sinister texture to the music. Mazzoli opens the show with the line, “Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm,” taken from a real song in the 1860s that promoted westward expansion. This phrase is repeated as a mantra throughout the production.
The show closes with an unsettling tableau: The character who personifies death stands pointing at the audience in his top hat as an unmistakable Uncle Sam — who, in fact, did not give everyone a farm. Three of the family’s children lie dead, with no title for their land. The backdrop projections distort into an upside-down American flag, with a graveyard of bones representing the white stars.
Mazzoli said she purposely left the viewer to consider modern-day parallels for themselves. Schamberger elaborated on some of those potential comparisons.
“There’s certainly a contemporary question to this altogether, like, how does this work?” he said. “Yes, some people are the winners in this game. But in order for there to be winners, by definition, there will have to be losers, and their story we don’t hear so easily.”
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