Music Spotlight: All-American Opera

This new work took flight in 2002 when composer Daron Hagen pitched “a surreal pageant opera about the meaning of flight” to Seattle Opera, according to general director Speight Jenkins. But Jenkins doesn’t commission just any opera. According to Stephen Wadsworth, Amelia’s director and dramaturg, “It is an American opera, for American audiences, about American themes, sung in English.”

The plot thickens thus: nine months into her pregnancy, Amelia is haunted by the loss of her father, concerned that her husband, Paul, is deceiving her, and torn over the morality of bringing a child into a world filled with loss, pain and tragedy. These concepts drive the overlapping narrative threads of the opera and frame its thematic development.

Hagen cast American mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey in the title role. American baritone Nathan Gunn plays Paul, and tenor William Burden sings the role of Amelia’s father, Dodge. Local favorite Jane Eaglen also participates in this new commission, singing the role of Amelia’s Aunt Helen.

Amelia is Jenkins’ first opera commission and the first for the company in forty years. Of all Speight Jenkins’ accomplishments as the general director of Seattle Opera, and there are many, none may be as important as this one.