It is a gift to go to an opera production. As poor school teachers, we bought the least expensive tickets and sat in the second balcony, six rows from the back wall. Nevertheless, I could hear and see well from there from my small, uncomfortable seat in the brand new Cobb Center. Yet as I read the program, ticket sales raise only 42% of the Atlanta Opera's revenues and the nine pages of donors at the end of the program paid for 58% of the cost of my listening to Carlisle Floyd's Cold Sassy Tree. There were empty seats scattered around so there was a risk in playing the little known 8 year old work. Floyd has a great name doesn't he? There were many strengths in the production which was directed by Star Trek's Q, John de Lancie. The sets, were spare, but effective and beautiful. Costumes a little too new looking for rural Georgia and much to nice and clean for the milltown crowd. There was a uniform color pallate which gave the stage a uniform look. Can't decide if I liked that. Floyd's weakness seems to be that he is his own librettist. He wrote numerous silloquys for the principals and at times he leaves the artists singing his semi-melodic arias for ten minutes at a time without reaching a cadence. The music director would stop the music and wait for applause from an audience who was uncertain if it was really a time to show appreciation because of the lack of strong cadences.

The singers were all good. Chorus parts were limited but they handled them well. The small parts were covered with beautiful tone quality and strength, many by local artists, including our friend Brent Davis, who was the bad guy baritone and murderer, Hosie Roach. Way to go Brent. The principals were wonderful, although John McVeigh as Will Tweedy was a little light weight at times and was completely covered in ensembles by Erin Wall (Love Simpson) and Kristopher Irmiter (Rucker Lattimore). Wall was pretty amazing on a part that is pretty angular at times. Irmiter was very convincing vocally and as the character Rucker, who must be at least 20 years older than the bass-baritone. I wanted to hear them both sing a more traditional aria.

The opera is slow. It starts and ends well but slows to a crawl at times. I don't see it bringing in lots of new opera goers. Compare it to the fabulous "Wicked" on Broadway and well, there is no comparison. The comic relief, Timothy Mix (Clayton McAllister) was a fine singer and a welcome change of pace in act two. Melodically, it was as though Floyd ran out of music before the finish and the beautiful moments in the long opening act, with the support of wonderful orchestra colors, kudos to the percussionists, were missing from the finale. The closing chorus number was pale compared to the wonderful settings of Blest Be the Tie and the Doxolgy in act one.

I must say that Floyd handled using dialect, the vernacular of Georgia, very well. If you remember the phaux-southern of George Gershwin in Porgy and Bess, then you know how easy it is to miss the real thing in dialect and come off as a caricature. The combination of rural and southern language was very effective in this piece and the singers were able to handle it well.

Overall I have to say thank you to the Atlanta Opera. It was an impressive cast and production and I'm glad I was there to see and hear it.