New “Heron and the Salmon Girl” Opera Begins an “Our Earth” Cycle
The world premiere performance of Heron and the Salmon Girl takes place Sunday, February 10, at 2 p.m. at Town Hall. Advance tickets are $20 adults and $10 youth under 18 and seniors from Seattle Opera.
Yes, it’s a three-opera cycle, but fans of Seattle Opera’s Ring will find a few things different about the company’s Our Earth trilogy, commissioned from composer Eric Banks and librettist Irene Keliher. For one thing, as you can tell from the title of the first opera, Heron and the Salmon Girl, coastal Indian folklore was a source of inspiration for the story, rather than Norse legend.
(Just so no one is disappointed, the program also includes Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” and the Wesendonck Lieder, sung by former Seattle Opera Young Artist Adina Aaron.)
When I asked Banks (founder of The Esoterics choral group) about musical influences, he took it another direction entirely, explaining that he was more interested in how to reference the Northwest’s ecosystems and their relationships within the score — the Nature Conservancy is a sponsor — and let the soundscape emerge from there.
This still requires decisions based on intuition. The harp feels very watery, Banks says, while the mallets for vibraphone and marimba, coupled with high winds and brass, give something of the adrenaline of city life. A bass clarinet generates part of the gurgling chug of a boat’s motor.
That he got to research the Lushootseed language as well is the sort of thing Banks, who might jump from one concert in Swedish to another ancient Persian, lives for. His partner in storytelling is Irene Keliher, whose first opera libretto, A Way Home, had its premiere at Houston Grand Opera in 2010. A teaching artist with Writers in the Schools for six years, she also teaches college-level composition, and is a 2012 Made At Hugo House writer.
In the opera, the salmon have gone missing, and other animals (a mischievous orca, an observant heron, a grumpy turtle) are worried. There’s also a brother and sister who are were-salmons, and a fisherman who would like to catch ALL THE SALMONS for himself. The brother, who lives in the city, has fallen ill, and so his sister sets out to bring him medicine.
Singers are tenor John Coons, soprano Sonia Perez, baritone Thomas Thompson, and mezzo soprano Rachel DeShon. A collective star of the show is a heavily used youth chorus, with music provided by the Seattle Youth Symphony, conducted by Stephen Rogers Radcliffe.
The second opera has its premiere Saturday, April 20, as part of the Earth Day celebrations in the Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center. And the third opera, Every River Has Its People, will be performed—along with its two siblings—first on August 1, at Marrowstone Music Festival near Bellingham; the cycle repeats on August 3, at McCaw Hall in Seattle.
Anyone who tweets the following before 3 p.m. Friday will be entered to win tickets:
I want to win 2 tix to Heron & the Salmon Girl from @SeattleOpera & @Conserve_WA! http://bit.ly/Y5Hi5Q #OurEarthOpera
