Courtesy of Florentine Opera
After a long absence from the performing stage, audiences had a chance to hear Wuthering Heights, Carlisle Floyd’s unique 1958 incarnation of the Emily Brontë classic, in an exhilarating concert presentation by the Florentine Opera at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts. Surprisingly, Floyd’s riveting score supplants sentimentality with a dramatically polyphonic, unflagging steam of music rich in dissonant, ear-catching harmonies.
Floyd creates a surprisingly sophisticated, contemporary musical intensity; without exaggerating the dramatic tension, the opera remains faithful to the original story. The emotional tensions are taut and never seem extreme. The score feels fresh and original, as if consciously independent of its famous source material, yet not particularly melodic in a sentimental sense. Whether or not this remains faithful to Brontë’s original conception of the metaphysical aspects of her love story remains a matter of conjecture. The emotional extremes in Floyd’s score leave little room for tenderness, but his characters have great dimensionality. The music’s impetus often resembles Samuel Barber in its sophisticated determination to identify itself as an original 20th-century work, and not a sentimental derivative of an English classic.
While the operatic stage cannot conjure up the moors, film buffs will be reminded that much of the libretto is directly derived from both the 1939 film and the novel. If truth be told, many lines are better served spoken than sung. However, the magnificent closing scenes of both film and novel are duly acknowledged in the libretto. Many will feel that the musical intensity, which defines Floyd’s commitment to the power of the conclusion of Wuthering Heights, is no small compensation.
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The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra under Conductor Joseph Mechavich played this complex score with an easy aplomb as if they had been long familiar with it. The cast was uniformly excellent. As Heathcliff, Kelly Markgraf cut quite a figure and would have been great in a staged production. His authoritative baritone resounded powerfully at all times. As Kathy, soprano Georgia Jarman tackled some treacherous high notes but remained steadfast. As Isabella, the neglected wife, the attractive Heather Buck performed admirably, as did Chad Shelton as Hindley and Matthew Burns as the elder Earnshaw. Suzanne Mentzer as Nelly the servant was equally effective.
