Tuscaloosa Symphony, UA team up for world premiere of new opera

For Monday’s world premiere of Joseph Landers’ new opera “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” the University of Alabama Opera Theatre is collaborating with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, conducted by TSO music director Adam Flatt.

For Monday’s world premiere of Joseph Landers’ new opera “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” put aside what you know about the seminal Depression-era book, advises Paul Houghtaling.

Though the sagas of impoverished tenant farmers do involve trials and tragedies, the overriding message is of hope, said Houghtaling, who directs the production. His University of Alabama Opera Theatre is collaborating with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, conducted by TSO music director Adam Flatt. Monday’s performance, at the Moody Concert Hall on the UA campus, will be filmed for Alabama Public Television.

“It’s through struggle, of course, and deeply tragic, and yet full of hope, and survival, and dignity,” he said.

UA grad Landers received the commission from the Alabama State Council on the Arts some years back; when the project came to Tuscaloosa, about 18 months ago, the debut fell into place as a dual bicentennial celebration for both state and city. The composer chose the source material, built around stories collected by writer James Agee in 1936 Hale County, with stark photographs by Walker Evans. Agee used pseudonyms for both people and places: Cherokee City is Tuscaloosa; Centerboro is Greensboro; Cookstown is Moundville. “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” has become acclaimed not only as landmark journalism, but a work of art.

″(Landers) thought it would celebrate Alabama, show the strength of its people, the hope, the faith in family,” Houghtaling said of the opera, which blends the three main sharecropper families of Agee’s book into one, the Shaws, and wraps around two funerals and a wedding. “It is indeed a celebration of the cycle of life, of hard work ... But there’s an overall tone of optimism, despite the tragedies that weave throughout.”

Houghtaling brought back some of his alums for the performance, such as Paul Wolf, who plays John Henry Shaw, family patriarch, joining faculty members such as himself — he performs landowner Mr. Murphree — and David Tayloe, as sheriff of Hale County, and Alexis Davis-Hazell, as Shaw matriarch Rachel. Current students perform other named characters, including daughter Mary Rose (Ashton Griffin), son Little John (Evan Fleming), sharecroppers and ministers, and flesh out the 12-person ensemble. As the young poet did in his book, Agee occasionally appears in character, performed by Christopher Withrow.

“Some of the text, some of it is right out of Agee’s writing, sung by the character,” Houghtaling said. There’s no lack of drama: From the top there’s a pregnant girl, her family seeking the father, who doesn’t want to stay and become a sharecropper like the rest of his family, instead running off to Birmingham to work in iron mines. At a union protest, a man is killed with a shovel, and despite lack of proof, the young man is sought in the slaying.

“But then another mean-spirited man is blamed for the murder,” Houghtaling said. Agee and Evans were contracted only to write one story for Fortune magazine, but they found such depth of material “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” became a 400-page fully illustrated book instead.

One challenge of the process has been working with young people, “most of whom have never experienced such depth of despair,” Dickensian in feel. But many of the more experienced mature singers have grown up with Agee’s words in their ears, Houghtaling said.

“Some of the most most iconic works of American art music, the text is Agee,” he said. Though of course the three-act opera is written in English, projections will include titles too, as there’s so much text. Because it’s being filmed for APT, specialists in hair and makeup for television join costuming forces brought together by Donna Meester, from the UA Department of Theatre and Dance. Sets have been designed by Matthew Cornelson, Carl Hathorne and Richard Livingston, while Tlάloc Lόpez-Watermann and Jacob Olson are adding projections of Evans’ stirring photography to the lighting design.

“We’ve done everything we possibly can to make this an enthralling theatrical experience, and to enhance the live aspect,” Houghtaling said.

Composer Landers saw a nearly-complete run for the first time Friday evening, a dress rehearsal with just piano, and some set, lights, projection and such still in progress.

“He allowed the work to grow, he allowed us to make it our own, to bring it to life,” Houghtaling said. “I like to think Joseph Landers trusted me and the team, the artists I assembled.

“He was deeply moved, he was extremely choked up; speechless at the end of it. The whole cast felt very special about what we did last night. That was cool.”

Rehearsals with the full symphony backing will be Sunday. This will be the third collaboration between Flatt and Houghtaling. The TSO recently renewed its music director’s contract for another five years.

“Come see some human empathy, some human compassion live on stage, as it’s being recorded for public television,” Houghtaling said. “It’s not about depression, it’s not about death. It’s about survival and faith and hope; those are the main themes of the opera.”

The one-night-only debut will be 7 p.m. Monday in the Moody Concert Hall, to be filmed by ABT, for broadcast closer to the December bicentennial date. Tickets are be on sale through the TSO at www.tsononline.org, or by calling 752-5515.