The challenge of dramatizing Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights has always seemed insurmountable. Set in the barren Yorkshire moors in the 1840s, the novel’s elusive energy does not suggest a geographic area but lies in some imagined metaphysical realm between heaven and hell.
The great novel was filmed in a glowing version in 1939 with Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon. The movie was made four unsuccessful times since and inspired a tepid 1951 opera by renowned film composer Bernard Herrmann. These later attempts to bring the unearthly passion of the original into a more down-to-earth, “believable” incarnation seemed almost as much of an act of hubris as turning Gone With the Wind into a musical.
That being said, composer Carlisle Floyd’s take on the novel should not be underestimated, although one is inclined to think that the subject matter of Wuthering Heights may be too elusive for so regional a composer. Floyd’s scenario follows the 1939 film’s storyline rather closely. He obviously admires the film. Floyd is one of the most respected American operatic composers and his many awards and accolades are well documented. His most popular work, Susannah, (1955) contains the flavor of his Southern upbringing, but Of Mice and Men (1969) is known for more subtle tragedy. Floyd has received numerous literary and musical accolades. He writes his own librettos; his more recent works, including Bilby’s Doll (1976) and Willie Stark (1981), reflect his seasoned professionalism. He was the only composer included among those receiving a National Medal of Arts Awards at the White House in 2004.
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The Florentine Opera Company will present Wuthering Heights at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts in an unstaged concert to be recorded live for commercial purposes. According to Bill Florescu, general director of the Florentine Opera, “Carlisle had expressed a preference for recording Wuthering Heights when asked during his recent visit to Milwaukee for our company’s performance of Susannah.” The taping of Wuthering Heights will be funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant and by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Recording and will be released by Bridge Records.
“I love the opera, feeling that it is underappreciated,” Florescu continues. “It has an appealing lyricism that makes a compelling combination with the more dramatic aspects of the score, but not with Carlisle’s usual folk influence—this being his first opera without a Southern setting. Since the work is not being staged, it becomes easier to capture the metaphysical aspects of the score without having to deal with the difficulties which visual stagecraft would entail.”
Perhaps the wonder of Wuthering Heights’ story is that it falls outside the emotional range of the 21st century, yet the film is still regarded with awe by those who often find themselves at a loss to explain their reaction to such an emotionally unique work. Floyd’s opera, in following the arc of the movie, may indeed narrow those gaps of feeling with music that softens the intensity of the great novel in a harmonious balance between uncomfortable dramatic ambivalence and the mellifluous smoothing influence of a fine score.
The Florentine Opera will perform Wuthering Heights Jan. 9 and 11, at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, 19805 W. Capitol Drive, Brookfield. For tickets, call 1-800-32-OPERA or visit florentineopera.org
