The Fox, DH Lawrence’s 1922 novella, has found new life in the premiere of an Opera Unbound production by the same name.
The WW1-era love triangle that challenged social and sexual constructs was made into a 1967 film starring Sandy Dennis, but this it its first operatic incarnation. The new chamber opera, by emerging Vancouver composer Roan Shankaruk and directed by Christopher Lam, is an intimate look at the psycho-social and gender dynamics of rural Berkshire circa 1918, and it still packs a contemporary punch.
Shankaruk tells Opera Canada that she discovered the novella in 2019 and immediately saw its operatic potential. The story is set during the Spanish flu outbreak and, in a strange confluence of pandemics, the initial workshop of the opera at the University of Manitoba (where Shankaruk did her master’s degree in music) was masked and isolated.
Fittingly, the opera unfolds as a kind of fever dream, full of rich, surrealist allusions and haunting music. At times it has the visceral feel of cabaret, and elsewhere a touch of the cinematic.
Nellie March (played by Opera Unbound co-founder Taryn Plater) and Jill Banford (played April 17th and 18th by Renee Fajardo and on April 19th by Shankaruk herself) are business and covert romantic partners on a farm, whose lives are shaken by the arrival of young soldier Henry Grenfell (played by Chris Donlevy). The story of the two women was gripping until the end, each musical and narrative moment imbued with meaning. The young cast performed admirably, as did the three-person chamber ensemble of pianist Derek Stanyer, violinist Teodora Dimova and cellist Min Jee Yoon, conducted by Opera Unbound’s music director Perri Lo.
In a pre-show talk, Shankaruk, who adapted the libretto into two acts with eleven scenes, told the opening night audience that Lawrence’s descriptions of the characters with animal undertones helped shape her musical language. Lawrence likened Banford to a chicken, flighty, nervous and often sickly like those on her farm, while March is described as a March hare. Grenfel personifies the fox, who hunts the two women and is epitomized in the adaptation of an of-the-era poem by Bliss Carman called The Red Wolf. “It is the fox, the fox! It comes over me! The spell of the fox!” sings March.
Photo Credit: Diamond’s Edge Photography
In “Eavesdropping,” the opening scene of the second act, Henry (Chris Donlevy) hides under Nellie’s and Jill’s bed (here, Taryn Plater and Renee Fajardo)
Accordingly, Banford, as performed in Fajarado’s sumptuous mezzo-soprano voice with luxuriant high notes, is a plucky heroine, with quick movements and crowing crescendos, who meets an unfortunate fate. Mezzo-soprano Plater’s March, well performed in a nuanced portrayal with velvety vocal texture, is a more placid character, locked into staring matches with Grenfel, who momentarily mesmerizes her into abandoning her relationship with Banford and accepting his offer of marriage.
While the operatic version of The Fox is not as overt about their relationship as the 1967 cinematic version, the less-is-more version of the women’s love works well. To their credit, Plater and Fajardo portray a convincing couple, grounded in the workaday reality of a solid relationship, in contrast to the fleeting seduction of Grenfel, and their acting chops are on par with their vocal prowess. The first scene in the second act, called “Eavesdropping,” where the increasingly creepy Grenfel hides under their bed, is a highlight.
Montreal-based tenor Chris Donlevy is excellent as the unhinged bully/soldier Henry, enraged by rejection. Shankaruk, whose arpeggio-rich score is one part Benjamin Britten, one part Phillip Glass, endows Grenfel with a signature sinister sing-song melodic line. After he shoots the fox and skins it, he sings menacingly as he rubs it on his body in a scene reminiscent of a scary nursery song in an English horror film. (Intriguingly, Shankaruk’s next project with the company is a “horror opera.”)
The clever use of shadow puppetry (by Matthew Görlitz) and red-hued lighting (designed by Christian Ching) offer a full-on nightmarish effect and Donlevy’s lilting yet disturbing misogynistic soliloquies stayed with me long after the opera was over. In Scene 8, called “Nothing But Flowers,” he sings of Banford as he skins the fox, “You’re a nasty little thing. / I hope you’ll be paid back for all the things you’ve done me for nothing!”
At times, the subtext of the very English libretto is comical, and the audience laughed as Henry read March’s rejection letter on the train, mentioning ever so politely that “Jill sends her kindest regards.” But when he eventually does her in – in a most DH Lawrence sort of way, unleashing the wild untamed forces of nature – he reaches peak villain.
The Fox bodes well not only for the future of chamber opera as an affordable and adaptable creative form, but also for the future of Vancouver’s young, independent opera scene. This is Opera Unbound’s first full-scale opera since their recent inception, and I look forward to their next one.
Photo Credit: Diamond’s Edge Photography
Chris Donlevy and Taryn Plater in the premiere production of The Fox at Opera Unbound
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