Sumeida’s Song

Opera (2014)
by Mohammed Fairouz

With Jenny Searles (Mabrouka), Heather Gallagher (Asakir), Alex Schlosberg (Sumeida), Matthew Stansfield (Alwan)

Asakir’s son, Alwan, has been away for many years. During this time her husband has been murdered by the Tahawi clan and Asakir wishes that Alwan will exact revenge upon them when he soon returns. Upon his arrival, Asakir’s friend’s son Sumeida fetches Alwan from the station, at which point begins a duel of wills between Asakir and Alwan about the right action to take. Asakir is so horrified by Alwan’s reluctance to carry out the act of revenge that she arranges for his murder.

The music that accompanies this horrifying story is earnest and complex, but quite uniform througout most of the hour of the opera. Highly reminiscent of Britten, it is contemporary Western-style music that embodies a kind of ongoing turmoil in its knotted, dark tones.

The story itself is so one-dimensionally bleak that it does not offer much reprieve for a composer to vary the tone and mood. Consequently, all the arias feel like tragic laments sewn together within unrelenting waves of musical turbulence. If one does get into the general gestalt of the music, its continuing fervor has a hypnotic quality. Nonetheless, because the tone of the libretto it is so generally uniform, there is not much room for dramatic variation.

It is a bit jarring to watch and to listen to a Middle Eastern revenge tale and have it supported by a score which, though appropriately intense and moody, has virtually no trace of Middle Eastern influence. Only at the very end, in the fever pitch of the dramatic culmination, does the score take on something of a Middle Eastern sweep, a refreshing and revealing musical moment; one wishes there were more of that earlier on.

This is an ambitious production and the Boston Opera Collaborative is to be highly commended for its support of such unique and innovative repertoire. The composer, Mohammed Fairouz, is in his late twenties, and one can see much promise in his work, especially when the score rises out of its more standard and somewhat imitative moments to explore more expressive forms of lyricism. Apparently this is his first opera, and is indeed quite an impressive maiden voyage.

The singers were very good and the orchestra did a commendable job with a complex score.

Boston Opera Collaborative, founded in 2005 to give performance opportunities in major roles to young artists, has added a very interesting dimension to the Boston opera scene, incorporating a varied selection of new works such as this one – as well as some classics – into its offerings. It is a bold and worthy endeavor and it was greatly satisfying to venture into the Somerville Theater in Davis Square to see and hear a talented group of young singers and instrumentalists perform this innovative and bold, though darkly tragic, work by a promising young composer.

– BADMan