PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Paul Moravec & Mark Campbell — SANCTUARY ROAD (B. Taylor, L. Lain, T. Raven, N. Shankle, M. Merriweather; North Carolina Opera, 4 March 2022)

PAUL MORAVEC (born 1957) and MARK CAMPBELL (born 1953): Sanctuary Road [WORLD STAGE PREMIÈRE] – Benjamin Taylor (William Still), LaToya Lain (Clarissa Davis, Harriet Eglan), Taylor Raven (Ellen Craft, Charlotte Giles), Norman Shankle (Wesley Harris), Malcolm J. Merriweather (Henry “Box” Brown, Peter Still); North Carolina Opera Chorus and Orchestra; William Henry Curry, conductor [Dennis Whitehead Darling, Director; Brian Ruggaber, Set Designer; Driscoll Otto, Lighting and Projections Designer; Denise Schumaker, Costume Designer; Martha Ruskai, Wig and Makeup Designer; North Carolina Opera, A.J. Fletcher Opera Theater, Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Friday, 4 Match 2022]

From the Roman emperor Nero’s ruthless repudiation of his lawful wife in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea to the brutal murder of Leon Klinghoffer in John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer, opera abounds with accounts of the cruelties perpetrated by humanity upon man and nature. The horrors of man’s indefatigable quest for dominion over his fellow man are manifested in opera’s many enslaved characters, the barbarity of their servitude sometimes assuaged by comedy that frequently engenders the poetic justice of slaves outwitting their masters. Laughter is a potent therapy, but, n opera as in history, the pain inflicted upon the victims of societies’ prejudices must never be ignored.

The impulse to use only past tense when referring to the enslavement of people of color in the United States of America is understandable, but racial, political, and economic divisions continue to subject some Americans to conditions that are little better than the physical slavery of previous centuries. This disturbing reality makes preserving and retelling stories from the past a critical component of safeguarding freedom in America’s present and future. Similarly, it seems impossible that stories as integral to the nation’s heritage as those of the Underground Railroad, the network of clandestine travel routes and safe havens via which Americans fled from enslavement, could ever cease to be told, but uncomfortable conversations are too often silenced.

Published in 1872, William Still’s The Underground Railroad Records, documented first-hand recollections of its author’s momentous endeavors in advancing abolitionism and aiding enslaved people in their quests for freedom. Still was born in 1821, the youngest son of former slaves. His father purchased emancipation, but his mother escaped, was captured and returned to bondage after giving birth to four of Still’s siblings. Upon her second escape, Still’s mother was able to take only two of her children with her. The sons that she was compelled to leave behind remained enslaved despite having been born in New Jersey, where slavery was forbidden by law, and the elder brother died at the hand of an abusive slave owner in Alabama. Still’s battle to end slavery in the United States merits a lauded place in history—and in opera—alongside the courageous actions of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, Joan of Arc, and Sophie and Hans Scholl.

Cultural depictions of people and themes like those found in The Underground Railroad Records are tasked with the formidable responsibility of telling their stories accurately but engagingly. Even after 150 years, the emotions that pervade Still’s writing remain disquietingly visceral. Premièred in concert at Carnegie Hall in May 2018, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec’s and librettist Mark Campbell’s musical adaptation of Still’s records, Sanctuary Road, brings figures from the Underground Railroad to the stage compellingly but without sensationalizing their circumstances.

First conceived as an installment in its creators’ series of oratorios on American subjects, Sanctuary Road assumed a new rôle in North Carolina Opera’s fully-staged production. Like the biblical narrative of Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, the solemnity of Sanctuary Road’s subject is well suited to oratorio, in which the relative absence of visual distractions can heighten the audience’s ability to connect with music and words, but this performance, presented in Raleigh’s 600-seat A.J. Fletcher Opera Theater, affirmed that Moravec’s and Campbell’s Sanctuary Road leads to the opera house.

Intuitively discerning and amplifying Moravec’s and Campbell’s focus on the prevailing spirit of William Still’s writing, director Dennis Whitehead Darling intensified the gravitas of the characters’ situations by accentuating the uniqueness of each individual’s struggles. Framed by Brian Ruggaber’s clean-lined set designs and Driscoll Otto’s and Jessica Drayton’s finely-judged projections and lighting, the opera’s characters were differentiated effectively, with Still himself as a patriarchal central figure. Visually, the costumes and wig and makeup designs, respectively devised by Denise Schumaker and Martha Ruskai, facilitated the creation of both proper historical context and specific characterizations. Complemented by every element of the staging, the nuances of Darling’s direction mirrored the opera’s psychological progression, Still’s vision of an America in which slavery no longer existed motivating every gesture and image.

Voices of resilience: the Chorus in North Carolina Opera’s March 2022 world-stage-première production of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road
[Photograph by Eric Waters, © by North Carolina Opera]

Music Director of the Durham Symphony Orchestra since 2009, conductor and composer William Henry Curry led North Carolina Opera’s orchestra in an account of Moravec’s score that balanced rhythmic firmness with overwhelming emotional immediacy. Every instrument was played as though it had its own story of oppression to share, the musicians executing their parts with unassailable musicality and expressivity. The unerring coordination between stage and pit was bolstered by Curry’s mastery of the art of providing cues. Sanctuary Road is an episodic piece, and Curry demonstrated complete understanding of its basic structure, propelling each scene to its climax whilst also concentrating on the music’s cumulative impact. Curry never allowed the weight of the opera’s subject to adversely affect moments of humor and dance-like lightness, his conducting emphasizing the truth, elucidated by the uplifting tonalities and harmonic transitions in Moravec’s music, that hope brings joy even in times of despair.

From plantations’ sun-scorched fields to today’s churches and Historically Black Colleges and Universities, singing has been a cornerstone of the African-American experience since the first slave ships landed on North America’s shores. Moravec’s writing for chorus in Sanctuary Road honors this tradition powerfully and always with the composer’s own musical language. A particular glory of North Carolina Opera’s staging of Sanctuary Road was its celebration of the diversity of its chorus, the singers, wearing modern dress, representing both the many ethnicities that have endured subjugation throughout America’s history and the diaspora of today’s descendants of enslaved peoples.

Under Scott MacLeod’s expert direction, the choristers sang ‘Our testimony, our stories cannot be forgotten’ forcefully, the words enunciated with stunning clarity. Their declamation of ‘Reward will be paid’ wielded galvanizing energy that revealed the music’s kinship with the ‘turbæ’ in Bach’s Passions. In this performance, Moravec’s setting of lines from Psalm 40, ‘I waited patiently for the Lord,’ offered a sense of transfigurjng catharsis, the voices soaring, but the wordless choral interlude that acts as a sort of prelude to the opera’s final scene was no less stirring. Taken from Deuteronomy 23, the lines ‘Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant who has escaped his master unto thee’ succintly epitomize the ethos of the Underground Railroad and Sanctuary Road, and North Carolina Opera’s chorus sang the passage fervently. As sung by these choristers, the closing pages of Sanctuary Road achieved a level of exultation reminiscent of the final scene of Beethoven’s Fidelio, the ensemble bringing down the curtain with a majestic paean to liberty.

Contained: baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather as Henry “Box” Brown in North Carolina Opera’s March 2022 world-stage-première production of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road
[Photograph by Eric Waters, © by North Carolina Opera]

Using only a pair of chairs and the vigor of his voice, baritone and conductor Malcolm J. Merriweather cunningly evinced the exhaustion of Henry “Box” Brown’s journey to Philadelphia in a shipping crate. The exasperation with which he voiced ‘They can’t seem to read,’ detailing his rough handling during twenty-six hours on train and at sea, transported the audience into the claustrophobic space in which this daring man escaped from slavery. Merriweather subsequently portrayed William Still’s older brother Peter, one of the siblings from whom the author was separated by his mother’s plight, with touching simplicity, the sentiments of his unexpected encounter with his brother after four decades understated but unmistakably transformation. The tenderness of Merriweather’s voicing of Peter’s inquiries about his mother’s wellbeing movingly imparted the agony of slaves being denied knowledge of their families’ health and locations. The joy and relief of Peter’s learning that his mother, though walking with a cane and heating with a horn, was alive softened the steel in Merriweather’s tones into shimmering satin.

Flight to freedom: tenor Norman Shankle as Wesley Harris in North Carolina Opera’s March 2022 world-stage-première production of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road
[Photograph by Eric Waters, © by North Carolina Opera]

As Wesley Harris, whose harrowing exodus from bondage was plagued by real and perceived perils, tenor Norman Shankle sang Moravec’s demanding music unflinchingly, effortlessly traversing the rôle’s range and ascending above the stave with assurance born of his experience with bel canto repertoire. Charging onto the stage as though his character were pursued by Satan himself, Shankle sang ‘Run, run, run through the woods’ excitingly, breathlessly conveying Wesley’s desperation but maintaining superlative breath control. His voicings of ‘Run, go, run, quicker than the wind’ and a reprise of ‘Run, run, run through the woods’ palpably recreated the unsettling fear of discovery felt by the Underground Railroad’s travelers. The brilliant patina of Shankle’s timbre shone in ensembles, in which his voice resounded with crystalline presence, and the tenor’s acting was as vibrant and affecting as his singing.

Bound for Philadelphia: mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven as Ellen Craft in North Carolina Opera’s March 2022 world-stage-première production of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road
[Photograph by Eric Waters, © by North Carolina Opera]

Disconcerted by finding  herself on the same train as the brother of the master from whom she is fleeing, Ellen Craft sings one of Sanctuary Road’s most enthralling scenes. Vocally and dramatically, mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven’s performance of ‘He doesn’t know’ was riveting, the words delivered with spontaneity that communicated Ellen’s consternation and fierce determination. A superb instrument with imperturbable security in the lower register and an alluring gleam at the top, Raven’s voice also gave Charlotte Giles a well-defined musical identity, the mercurial wit of the mezzo-soprano’s vocal acting in ‘Oh, oh, oh, poor, poor Aunt Abigail’ elucidating the slyness of the ruse that Charlotte and her companion employed along their road to freedom. Like her colleagues, Raven sang with poise ans eloquence in ensembles, her immersion in the opera’s drama always visible and audible.

Singing in the rain: soprano LaToya Lain as Clarissa Davis in North Carolina Opera’s March 2022 world-stage-première production of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road
[Photograph by Eric Waters, © by North Carolina Opera]

Harriet Eglan, Ellen’s fellow traveler and partner in mourning the untimely demise of the fictitious ‘poor, poor Aunt Abigail,’ was portrayed by soprano LaToya Lain, whose feigned grief brought welcome levity to a scene of latent anxiety. By contrast, Clarissa Davis’s ‘Come down, rain, come down hard’ is a scene of euphoric beauty, and Lain sang it with mesmerizing serenity. Her vocalism was marvelous throughout the evening but was especially, unforgettably sublime in this scene. The soprano’s voice was the ideal conduit for the electricity of Moravec’s music, her singing igniting the performance with dramatic fire that not even the deluge evoked by the staging’s beguiling projections could have extinguished.

Writing it down: baritone Benjamin Taylor as William Still in North Carolina Opera’s March 2022 world-stage-première production of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road
[Photograph by Eric Waters, © by North Carolina Opera]

Baritone Benjamin Taylor’s portrayal intimated that, though William Still is unquestionably the work’s focal point and receives some of Moravec’s finest vocal writing, freedom itself is the protagonist of Sanctuary Road. Nobly intoning ‘Write it down’ in the opera’s opening scene, Taylor established Still as a heroic but humble man who was cognizant of the prominence of Providence in his work. In each of the opera’s successive interviews, Taylor’s Still initiated benevolent rapport with the people benefiting from his assistance, culminating in the meeting with the brother he had known only by name. Still’s vocal line occasionally descended beyond the lower extremity of Taylor’s vocal comfort zone, but every note was sung with appreciation of its importance in telling the stories of The Underground Railroad Records.

Taylor’s voicing of ‘Five years since I hid these records’ projected a sense of fulfillment, the objective of not only saving the lives of enslaved people but also of preserving their stories realized. As Taylor’s depiction suggested, the rigors of his work required that sternness and stoicism be aspects of Still’s character, but compassion was the core of his constitution. Both Taylor’s rousing, charismatic singing and this poignant staging of Sanctuary Road proclaimed that the work of protecting freedom cannot be done by only one man or one generation. The work continues, differently but diligently, intangible roads still guiding marginalized souls to sanctuary.