ETHAN FROME

In 1955, Douglas Allanbrook '48 played the piano reduction of his Ethan Frome for Aaron Copland, who tentatively promised to give the opera a New York premiere after requesting a second play-through. Soon after, however, Copeland finished his own Tender Land, which he produced instead. "Immensely proud" and wanting "the Met or nothing," Allanbrook shelved the score and moved onto other projects, not wanting to waste time selling the piece when he could be writing others. So, for nearly 50 years following its composition, the opera lay unproduced and unpremiered while Allanbrook wrote other pieces and carried on his busy life as a professor. According to John Allanbrook '99, his father did talk about the work, and tried "to convince [Allanbrook] that it wouldn't need a large string section, and that it would be easy to produce." While putting up the production may not have been easy, the operatic rendition of Edith Wharton's famous tale scheduled to open this Friday in the Eliot House dining hall is as richly storied as the novel it is based upon, backed as it is by the musical passion of both Allanbrook Senior and Junior, and that of Brett Egan '98, Lee Poulis '02 and others.

John Allanbrook first heard Ethan Frome fragmentally on a demo tape his father had recorded in the '50s. After hearing the tape and reading the score, Allanbrook Jr. became convinced, that "it was a good piece and meant to be preformed." Ethan Frome is hardly a simple musical undertaking, demanding not only a well-appointed string section, but also a full brass section, concert bassoon, bass clarinet. English horn and piccolo. After informing his father of his production plans, Allanbrook Jr. spent 12-hour days throughout the summer entering the score into the computer program Finale in order to produce the orchestral parts.

Returning to the University the money he won from the Wendell Scholarship his first year, he is paying the orchestra members for their time, creating a new standard in the Harvard pits which is usually staffed by under-rehearsed, if generous, volunteers. Likening parts to "the romantic climaxes of West Side Story" and others to "Jaws 20 years before its time," Allanbrook Jr. emphasizes Ethan Frome's unique ability to "bring down the idea that opera is a rarified musical form" because it is "accessible and unified--as music and theater should be when put together."

When Douglas Allanbrook began composing in the '50s after several years with Nadia "a lot of people thought of the necessity of writing American works" that would be accessible and relevant to American audiences. Along these lines, a friend suggested that he write an opera based upon Ethan Frome--Edith Wharton's tragic account of forbidden love set in frigid Starkfield, Mass. Allanbrook wrote the opera in Naples in 1951 on the continuation of a Fulbright scholarship that allowed him to go to the opera at Santo Carlo every weekend. A friend he met at Harvard, John Hart '48 (who would later go on to be a successful biochemist and novelist) collaborated as librettist, sending him batches of lyrics which he put to music in the heady Italian atmosphere.

In contrast to traditionally "suitable" subjects for opera, like classical mythology, pastoral romance and gothic drama, Ethan Frome cuts a different figure. Edith Wharton's book contains very little dialogue, and when the characters speak, they talk about timber and tobacco pouches, not their passionate and undying love.

One is made even more skeptical about Ethan's prospects when the ending is considered. In the novella, Ethan and Mattie attempt suicide by sledding very fast into a tree, how this works into the opera remains the show's biggest mystery. When asked about the suitability of the Ethan Frome for opera, Lee Poulis '02, who will make his Harvard debut in the title role, commented that "all opera is based on love." Despite a certain frigidity, Ethan Frome is a beautifully tragic love story.

According to John Allanbrook, "Edith Wharton communicated verbally that the story might have been better without flashbacks" so there is "a precedent to tell the story in a different way." "People are turned off by Ethan Frome simply by the way it's narrated. Wharton had the story down, then mechanically applied this 19th century device which distances the reader from the characters."

Reducing the prevelance of the flashbacks, the opera tells the story sequentially, with an ending climax where Ethan and Mattie have an aria "reminiscent of Macbeth--a crossing of the paths" which makes use of the Neapolitan scale that followed Allanbrook Sr. home from the Santo Carlo Operas. Egan, who spent the summer working at the Santa Fe Opera with Jonathan Miller, will be stage directing the preformance, and his hand-picked cast promises a great show.

The only Harvard performer is first-year Poulis, who turned down one of the eight prestigious vocal spots at Julliard in favor of a liberal arts education supplemented by lessons from Edward Zambara. Hailing from Greenlawn, N.Y., his last two performances were American operas preformed in New York City Opera Companies. In a review his most recent performance, the November Opera News claimed that "ticketholders got a peek at a prospective star of tomorrow," who will grace the stage on Friday as Ethan.

From this world-premiere, Allanbrook Jr. plans to continue his work with the opera by recording it in January with Mapleshade Records, and possibly by staging repeat performances during the summer festival season. Talking about the work, John Allanbrook said he doesn't "think anyone else writes like that; you might compare it to Hindemith because it has a lot of counterpoint, but it has a much sweeter tonality--all these things interlocking." Perhaps the uniqueness of the sound, and the connections it makes will allow it to be the "moderately preformed opera in the American circuit" that Allanbrook Jr. hopes for. It would seem a mistake to miss the world premeire, but if all goes as planned, you'll be able to catch Ethan again at a later date.