Review and Analysis: Marnie, Live In HD

Yesterday was the Metropolitan Opera Live In HD broadcast of Nico Muhly and Nicholas Wright's new opera, Marnie. It was also the last performance in the opera's run, so this review is pretty pointless. But when has that ever stopped me?

Isabel Leonard (center) and the so-called "Shadow Marnies."

Photo by Ken Howard

Marnie is based on a film by Alfred Hitchcock. (Well, technically it's based on the book by Winston Graham, which Muhly explained was easier to get the rights to. I have neither read the book nor seen the movie, but I gather the opera contains elements of both.) A Hitchcock film is in some ways an odd choice for an opera, because much of Hitchcock's skill is in the camera work, which does not translate to a live performance in a 4,000-seat opera house with a fifty-foot proscenium. But it does translate to a cinema broadcast, and several of the shots struck me as something that worked really well in the cinema, but probably didn't play as well -- or at least played differently -- in the house. In one instance, there was a close-up shot of Marnie's face, which then panned up to reveal Mark Rutland looming ominously behind her. Obviously the audience in the house saw him standing there the whole time, so the surprise was exclusively for the cinema audience. I've noticed that the Live In HD broadcasts have been getting more and more creative in their camera direction, to the point where seeing the broadcast is no longer simply a stage performance captured on film, but its own unique experience that takes great advantage of the digital medium.

The sets, designed by Julian Crouch, and augmented with projections by 59 Productions, were designed to flow seamlessly between locations, and to this end they fulfilled their function. They did, however, seem to leave a lot of empty space, which is perhaps less suspenseful than, for example, the sense of claustrophobia the sets for The Exterminating Angel had. The projections were all in all well-executed, although some of them bordered on seeming a little cheesy. (The last image in particular I thought was a bit on the nose.) The lighting by Kevin Adams arguably did more of the storytelling, and I must give a mention to one particular lighting effect in the storm scene that gave me a legitimate shock. Arianne Phillips' costumes were fantastic all the way through, and I especially loved the Hunt costumes, both for the leads and the chorus.

Isabel Leonard and Christopher Maltman in the Hunt scene.

Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard ran a vocal marathon as the title character, who is on stage for virtually the entire opera. Leonard is one of today's most in-demand mezzos, and Muhly reportedly wrote the role with her in mind. So it goes without saying that she gave a marvelous performance. Her antagonist, Mark Rutland, was played by baritone Christopher Maltman. In an intermission feature at the broadcast, host Anthony Roth Costanzo jokingly referred to Maltman as "007," and he certainly looked the part. Most impressive in Maltman's performance was the sheer range the character goes through, from light and affable, to deep and very dark. Maltman pulled off both vocal extremes with equal ease.

Perhaps outshining them both was countertenor Iestyn Davies as Mark Rutland's brother Terry. Terry is perhaps the most troubling character in the opera, in that he is unsettling, unlikeable, and immoral, but at the same time, without losing any of that, he grows into not only a sympathetic character in Act II, but a reassuring force. In the later scenes of the opera, it became a relief to see him on stage, because though heinous, he was stable. Terry is unique among all the characters of the opera because he is completely up front and honest about how horrible he is, and it is his goal in the opera to prove that Marnie and Mark are just as messed-up as himself. Which provides a contrast to Marnie, who struggles with her guilt, as her criminal acts are in a roundabout way an act of atonement for something she did long ago, as well as to Mark, who internally justifies his criminal acts, while at the same time acknowledging that they're criminal by trying to hide them. Terry is the only character who never tries to get away with anything, and therefore he gets away with everything.

Which is not entirely true. Marnie's mother also gets away with her criminal actions, but Marnie's mother is not an active character in her own right. She exists to put strain on Marnie, and inform Marnie's actions. The role was played with immense gravitas by mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, and my only complaint with the role is that she did not have enough to do. Especially early on, when she could have provided valuable insight as to how Marnie feels in the early scenes. We learn later that Marnie is attempting to atone to her mother, and that there is a very good reason Marnie's mother refuses to be atoned to. (By "good" I mean "convincing." It's actually a very evil reason.)

Instead, what we get early on for insight into Marnie's character are four "Shadow Marnies" who follow her around, and what Nico Muhly calls "links." Short totally-not-arias that act as transitions between scenes where Marnie tells the audience how she is feeling. Unfortunately, in Act I, these "links" are a little Robot Devil-y. They tell the audience what sort of a person Marnie is rather than showing through her actions, and, more importantly, through her subtext. In the words of Stephen Sondheim, "music is a form of subtext." Nico Muhly seems to have forgone that in favor of letting Nicholas Write just blatantly tell the audience things with no subtlety. But this was mostly a problem in the exposition, and, as the opera progressed, the Shadow Marnies and "links" were used less. By Act II, they were all but absent, and when utilized, were much more effective.

A particularly egregious moment occurs maybe a third of the way through the first act. Marnie has stolen from the safe at her accounting firm, changed her identity, and applied for a job at a printing firm. Unfortunately, the person she's applying to was someone who met her at her previous job. She hears the name "Mark Rutland," and panics, but can't escape before he enters. The scene is filled with tension, because we're anticipating Mark recognizing Marnie. When this apparently doesn't happen and he leaves without comment, the tension of the scene is resolved, but a low-level tension stays now that the idea has been introduced that Marnie might be recognized by somebody. This is a good execution of suspense. (The scene at the bar where Marnie is recognized by someone else also had great suspense.) But right after this scene, we jump right into a "link," where Marnie feels the need to inform the audience "my heart is thumping" and "it seems my transformation did the trick." Well obviously. We just saw it. We don't need a recap. Things like this happened a lot with the "links." Characters told us things that we had already been shown, or told us things that would have been more effective shown, as was the case with the "guilt" chorus early in Act I.

***

Now the nitpicky stuff.

***

Later in Act I, Marnie attempts to rob the safe at Mark's printing firm. She has determined, after both Mark and Terry have made advances toward her, that it's time to disappear again. But as she's unlocking the safe, she is caught by Mark. This is treated as a surprise, but may have been more effective if Hitchkock's "time bomb under the table" had been invoked. If the audience had seen Mark lying in wait for the duration of the scene it may have been more suspenseful. At the same time, Hitchcock says that when you use a timebomb under the table, the bomb "must never go off." So I could just as easily be wrong about that.

One thing I think I am right about is that this should have been the scene where Mark reveals that he's known Marnie's identity this whole time. The main plot event that happens in this scene is Mark blackmails Marnie into marrying him, but he doesn't reveal just how much he knows until the honeymoon scene, at which point there are no longer really any stakes. If Mark reveals that information earlier, it raises the stakes for Marnie, because not only does he potentially have years and years of crimes to hold over her head, it also shows that he's been plotting this from the beginning. It still has this effect in the scene where he does reveal it, but less so, because it is not coupled with anything he wants directly to get out of it.

Also, after Marnie agrees to marry Mark, there is a "link" in which she says she'll "bleed him dry." Nothing remotely close to this does she ever attempt in the whole opera. In fact, Marnie is surprisingly passive throughout the whole second half. There is also a moment in Act II where Marnie seems to be devising a way to escape, but nothing comes of that either. Not that she doesn't succeed in escaping -- she never attempts it.

***

It seems to me that the last scene of Act I (the honeymoon scene) and the first scene of Act II (the vanity scene) mostly functioned as a lengthy transition between the penultimate scene of Act I (in which Marnie's mother references a traumatic event from Marnie's childhood) and the second scene of Act II (in which Marnie sees an analyst who draws it out of her). A lot of stuff happens in these two scenes, but none of it gets readressed. Based on some reading on Wikipedia, it seems that the source material was much more psychological, and that Marnie in the source material had more explicit mental health problems, in ways which linked the honeymoon and vanity scenes more strongly to the rest of the action, including the analyst scene. But in the opera, the reason Marnie goes to the analyst is completely unrelated to purpose of the analyst scene in the story. And so the honeymoon and vanity scenes are more or less just a convoluted buildup to get Marnie to an analyst who will ask her about her mother. (Yeah, that scene was pretty Freudian -- I gather the source material was moreso.)

This isn't really that much of a plot problem. Events still do flow logically and naturally from one to the next, and at a reasonably pace. What it does create is a character problem in Mark, because the dramatic events that occur in these two middle scenes make him perhaps irredeemably evil. But after these two scenes, he more or less goes back to being the same level of evil he was in the blackmail scene. Still evil, but able to be sympathetic. And the events in between remain entirely unadressed from that point on. Probably this could be resolved by simply softening the events of the honeymoon and vanity scenes. They can still follow the events that lead to Marnie going to the analyst, but Mark's actions don't have to be quite so heinous to get to that point. Because once a character goes irredeemably evil, they can't go back. That's the meaning of the word "irredeemable."

***

In the first scene of Act II, Marnie reveals that she has been continuing to play poker with Terry, even though their first poker game... did not end well. Throughout Act II, there was a really interesting dynamic between Marnie and Terry. Marnie hates Terry, but seems inexplicably drawn to him, because they are in many ways similar. In this manner, Terry is a representation of Marnie's own self-loathing. To this end, it would have been nice to see this more built up to in Act I, since as it stands, Terry just sort of becomes inexplicably more compelling in the second act.

In fact, in some ways, Terry becomes the driving force of Act II. He is the one to call Mark out on his actions, and he is the one to comfort Marnie after the hunt scene. That whole sequence, from the fight scene to the post-hunt scene, was incredibly gripping -- although the text of Terry's final "aria" was perhaps a little on-the-nose. I kind of feel like Mark should have been phased out of the opera out of the hospital scene, and the final scene should have been just with Marnie and Terry. I don't think it's really in Mark's character as established in the opera to go along with turning Marnie over to the police. It is absolutely in Terry's character.

(Incidentally, in the fight scene, Terry suggests to Mark a course of action that is suspiciously similar to the traumatic event from Marnie's childhood. Now that's good thematic linking of scenes.)

***

In between the fight scene and the hunt scene is another one of Marnie's "links," titled "I See Forio." In it, she sings about her horse, Forio, who is the only thing to give her peace of mind. Perhaps my only specific musical complaint with the opera is that the music of this aria was not nearly as serene as the text and the context seemed to demand. This is Marnie's one moment of clear-headedness before the finale, and it should sound like it. But the music seemed to have a lot of underlying tension that I did not care for at this point.

Also regarding the finale, the ending was a little Capriccio-esque, which, paired with the final projection, maybe came across as more comical than intended. The whole resolution was kind of abrupt too.

***

In some ways, this opera feels written backwards. As though Wright and Muhly had a great climax and denoument, and then tried to figure out how to get there. Act II takes for granted these incredibly compelling, layered characters, and draws a great psychological thriller out of them. Unfortunately, the characters don't quite get established that well in Act I, and so there is a disconnect where they suddenly start becoming compelling midway through without anything leading to that shift. And this opera lives not in the story or the music, but in the characters. (Incidentally, I had this same problem with Cendrillon.) 

But once Act II rolled around, it was a really engaging opera, and certainly exceeded my expectations. Supposing Wright and Muhly don't consider this opera "finished" now that it's played at the Met, I'd be happy to see it revisited.