BIO-OPERA CONSIDERING CONTEMPORARY CELEBRITY

By Jeff Counts

If it’s true that the distance between “wellknown” and “famous” can be measured in scandals, then we are living in a golden age of notoriety. Of course, everyone from every age could say that, and they would have a good argument. But there is little doubt that ours is a time of uniquely instant and complete scrutiny, a society without secrets if there ever was one. No good deed goes unpunished in the 21st century, no misdeed undissected, so the price of repute can be very high. Especially if your life story is interesting enough to tell on stage.

Recently, opera composers and librettists have been drawn to the big personalities that dominate our attention spans. Operas based on books, plays and other intellectual artifacts are as common as ever, but they are joined now by a rising number of works inspired by the more, shall we say, vernacular print forms like newspapers, tabloids and press releases. A list of these “bio-operas” (think “bio-pics”) would fill too many pages, but there are a few highlights worth mentioning here. Each of them illustrates the test of embodying people whose voices and faces we already know so well.

Thomas Adès, back in 1995, wrote Powder Her Face, an explicit look into the life of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, whose marriages, affairs and divorces were front page news during the 1960s. Opera houses have known such characters for