Gene Scheer - Songwriter & Lyricist

DALLAS — With all due respect to the composer Jake Heggie, whose new opera, “Moby-Dick,” opened in a blaze of glory at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House here on Friday night, his contribution might actually have been the most uncomplicated part of the undertaking. Not to suggest that concocting three hours of lively, comfortable vocal music and vividly atmospheric orchestration was a simple matter; presumably it was not. Mr. Heggie brought his customary facility to the work, which was commissioned by the Dallas Opera and four other companies. But consider the labor involved for Gene Scheer, the librettist, who had to pare down a leviathan novel to performable length while maintaining Melville’s grand language and moralistic tone. Imagine being Leonard Foglia, the director and dramaturge, faced with depicting an oceanic saga on the stage. Put yourself in Ben Heppner’s shoes — or shoe, more precisely, since his fiery, obsessive Captain Ahab hobbled about on a peg leg for the duration. In each instance the obvious effort paid off. Mr. Scheer’s libretto was an economical wonder, casting off Melville’s landlocked opening and stretches of minutiae regarding whales and whaling. What remained was a taut, two-act adventure yarn, bound by the relationships between Ahab and his conscientious first mate, Starbuck, and between the neophyte seaman Greenhorn (Melville’s Ishmael, renamed with dramatic intent) and Queequeg, the noble-savage harpooner. Their actions, and those of a large, nearly all-male Pequod crew, were played out against a multimedia-enriched staging that ranged from striking to near-miraculous. Robert Brill’s clean, sturdy sets included towering masts, spidery riggings and, in one scene, a brilliantly realized whale-rendering works. Donald Holder’s sensitive lighting conveyed season and mood. Jane Greenwood’s nautical garb was realistic and attractive. What truly set this production apart were Elaine J. McCarthy’s innovative projections, used to add dimension and shift perspective. Performers perched on rungs on a curved rear wall appeared to drift in skeletal whaleboats that rocked realistically. For a scene in which the cabin boy Pip, played by Talise Trevigne, a soprano, is lost at sea, Ms. Trevigne hung suspended above the stage, futilely paddling against a daunting expanse of projected waves. If Mr. Heggie’s music fell short of the innovation expended in its presentation, its impact seldom disappointed. He borrowed effects widely and deployed them shrewdly. An instrumental prologue was so cinematic you expected a credit roll. The Britten of “Peter Grimes” and “Billy Budd” flowed through Mr. Heggie’s currents and choruses. You heard traces of Debussy, Wagner and Hollywood in the orchestra, with moody Philip Glass-style stasis in transitions. The vocal writing had clear antecedents as well. More than one aria bore a distinct whiff of Puccini. A splendidly dreamy selection for Greenhorn and Queequeg — as close to a love duet as this scenario would bear — strongly recalled Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere.” What Mr. Heggie added to the mix was a fundamentally sound theatrical instinct. In several instances he limned jaunty, major-key themes with ghostly wisps of discord, reinforcing the omnipresent turmoil. The pervasive sadness and quiet of the crew’s demise had a striking solemnity. Even when you questioned Mr. Heggie’s choices — the oddly seductive rhythm that accompanied Ahab’s last tango with the whale, for example — you could still acknowledge its effect. The Dallas Opera treated Mr. Heggie to a first-rate cast. Mr. Heppner’s hearty tenor showed occasional signs of strain, but it would be difficult to imagine a performer better suited to convey Ahab’s complex mix of demoniac compulsion and fleeting heroism. Starbuck, the moral center of “Moby-Dick,” was handsomely portrayed by Morgan Smith, a sturdy baritone. As the exotically coiffed, tattooed Queequeg, the bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu provided the saga with a sympathetic soul. Stephen Costello, a bright young tenor and the 2009 Richard Tucker Award winner, was well suited to the role of the naïve, effusive Greenhorn. Ms. Trevigne was riveting as Pip: first boyish and jolly, later haunting in madness. Strong supporting players included Matthew O’Neill (Flask) and Robert Orth (Stubb). The chorus, prepared by Alexander Rom, did outstanding work. The conductor Patrick Summers, a seasoned hand in Mr. Heggie’s music, provided a gracious, lyrical flow and suitably stormy climaxes. How well “Moby-Dick” will hold up with lesser casts and productions remains to be seen. But any shortcomings aside, on one count Mr. Heggie’s opera was an undeniable success: The end of its maiden voyage was greeted with a sustained, rousing ovation, with shredded programs fluttering down from the highest seating level. The strongest response was reserved for Mr. Heggie and Mr. Scheer, received at the end with a triumphal roar. May 2, 2010 by Steve Smith

Gene is interviewed about the operatic premiere of MOBY-DICK on THINK, a PBS program produced in Dallas, TX. Click "Read More" and you will be directed to the link.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Ronald Blum (May 2010) “MOBY-DICK IS A WHALE OF A HIT FOR COMPOSER JAKE HEGGIE” Composer Jake Heggie achieved his goal Friday night with an achingly beautiful, magnificently sung and gorgeously staged world premiere of his Moby-Dick, the highlight of the Dallas Opera’s first season at the sparkling new Winspear Opera House. The audience responded with an eight-minute standing ovation. Just 49, Heggie has become one of the pre-eminent contemporary opera composers. His Dead Man Walking premiered at the San Francisco Opera in 2000 and is among the most successful operas premiered since the death of Benjamin Britten in 1976. Moby-Dick, based on Melville’s 1851 novel, is another triumph. Heggie is a rarity, an accessible composer whose melodic lines and sense of drama are aimed at audiences rather than academics. With librettist Gene Scheer, he has transformed Melville’s sprawling novel into an active stage work.///////////////// THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, Scott Cantrell (May 2010) Moby-Dick, the opera, is a triumph. Stunningly staged and sung, it captures the elemental forces of the sea and Captain Ahab’s obsession with the great white whale that has maimed him. Scheer seamlessly tunes his own prose and poetry to Melville’s. Heggie composes vocal lines that make sense vocally and illumine words and emotions.//////////// THE NEW YORK TIMES, Steve Smith (May 2010) …Mr. Heggie’s opera was an undeniable success: The end of its maiden voyage was greeted with a sustained, rousing ovation, with shredded programs fluttering down from the highest seating level. The strongest response was reserved for Mr. Heggie and Mr. Scheer, received at the end with a triumphal roar.///////////// OPERA NOW, Chris Shull (May 6, 2010) Melville’s Moby-Dick has been called the Great American Novel. Jake Heggie’s telling of the story is certainly a great American opera… …a vibrant cast, headlined by Canadian star-tenor Ben Heppner, an atmospheric set enhanced by vido projections, and Heggie’s sumptuous, noble score combined on May 5 for an exhilarating evening of music and theatre…/////////// THE TORONTO STAR, William Littler (May 2010) … probably one of the most successful new operas to reach the stage in the past quarter century.////////////// THE WASHINGTON POST, Anne Midgette (May 2010) Moby-Dick turned out to be one of the most satisfying new operas I’ve seen premiered… the opening-night crowd in Dallas broke into spontaneous applause three times during the first half, and screamed and yelled its approval at the curtain calls. It was a wonderful and rare reminder that new opera truly can excite people if it’s done right./////////////// BEYONDCRITICISM.COM, Matthew Gurewitsch The score is studded with vivid scenes in many modes. But the distinction of Moby-Dick lies less in its parts than in the whole. Though the action is episodic, the libretto holds a taut arc. The score holds together, too, shaped by the gravitational pull of the ties, ever-changing in the music yet ever-present. Ribbons of silken melody, played by solo winds and reeds, ripple high above, like wayward breezes. Pizzicati conjure up pinpricks of starlight on the waves. Under the baton of Patrick Summers, the score unfolded majestically, never rushed yet never meandering, the dramatic incidents clearly set off within the greater flow./////////////// THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, Joshua Kosman (May 2010) [Heggie & Scheer’s] powerful and emotionally irresistible new work, which opened over the weekend at the Dallas Opera, doesn’t shy away from the challenges presented by Melville’s landmark novel. Instead, it deftly sidesteps them, drawing from the source only those things needed for the drama and using Heggie’s lush, expressive music to carry the show. The result is a vibrant, compelling piece of musical theater…easily Heggie’s finest creation since Dead Man Walking first put him on the map a decade ago. Heggie’s great achievement in Moby-Dick is to write melodies that are memorable without being predictable, using harmonies that are clear but flavorful. The formal dramaturgy, too, is sleek and uncluttered, unfolding in a series of crisply rounded arias, choruses and especially duets.//////////////// D MAGAZINE, Wayne Lee Gay (May 2010) Along with a new opera, a new chapter in opera history may have opened Friday night at the Winspear Opera House. THE WASHINGTON POST, Anne Midgette (June 27, 2010) When it opened on April 30, Moby-Dick turned out to be the hit of the season. The audience screamed approval, and performances promptly sold out… …Moby-Dick is about as popular as a new opera can get. Not only was it a box-office success, but before it even opened, Heggie’s name also had attracted four co-producers…Therefore, this successful production will be seen again… OPERA TODAY, Wes Blomster (May 2010) It’s glorious and it’s gripping; it’s grand – and it’s good! Heggie — assisted by his seasoned librettist Gene Scheer — has achieved something with Moby Dick that American opera has not experienced in a long time: they have created a work of quality that should garner itself an immediate place in the repertory of opera houses around the world. Director Leonard Foglia worked with the hand of a sorcere to blend projection designs by Elaine McCarthy into an overpowering and effective whole with designs by Robert Brill and lighting by Donald Holder. Never did these visual aspects threaten the primacy of Heggie’s score, in which there is not one superfluous note. Patrick Summers, Heggie’s perennial collaborator, evoked magnificent playing from The Dallas Opera Orchestra in giving birth to what is obviously a modern masterpiece of music theater. OPERA WARHORSES, William Burnett (May 2010) Not only do I suspect that Moby-Dick will propel Heggie to the first rank of the extraordinary current crop of contemporary American opera composers, I believe that it quite possibly…will become the most popular opera written so far during our young century. FORT WORTH RENAISSANCE, Dean Cassella (May 2010) …reveals a composer whose depth and sophistication is growing with time, and the music world is the better for it. CITY WALK TALK, John P. Greenan (May 2010) Earlier this month I saw the future of opera. It is Moby-Dick at Dallas’ Winspear Opera House. WFAA-TV, Gary Cogill (May 2010) …a massive artistic accomplishment.

"It was quite an occasion. The work lived up to its outsize ambitions, and Mr. van Zweden led a beautifully prepared and dynamic performance. Mr. Scheer’s text consists largely of the actual words of characters represented — Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and the mothers of two of the slain civil rights workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman — drawn from a variety of sources, including official White House tapes. Weaving in other elements — a postcard from Mr. Goodman to his mother; a poem by Stephen Spender cherished by Mrs. Goodman; an application to work for the Congress on Racial Equality submitted by Michael Schwerner, the third victim — Mr. Scheer created a tapestry of overlapping streams of consciousness, and Mr. Stucky responded with a varied, colorful and mercurial score."JAMES R. OESTREICH Published: September 19, 2008

//Longtime Kennedy family friend Paul Kirk gives a touching tribute the memorial service for Sen. Edward Kennedy at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston. He concludes his remarks (7: 20 min into his speech) by quoting American Anthem. Click: "Read More" to connect to Youtube link.

Dallas Opera's 2009-10 Season to Present Ben Heppner as Ahab in Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick January 14, 2008 Dallas Opera has announced details of its offerings for 2009-10 — its inaugural season in the new Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House — which will include the presentation of a world-premiere opera by Jake Heggie along with performances of Otello, Così fan Tutte, Don Pasquale and Madama Butterfly. The world premiere, Heggie's operatic adaptation of Melville's Moby-Dick will feature a libretto by Gene Scheer and is to star heldentenor Ben Heppner in the role of Captain Ahab. The opera will take the Winspear Opera House's stage in April and May of 2010. Patrick Summers will lead performances of the work, which is a co-commission and co-production with San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera and Calgary Opera. Heggie and Scheer have previously collaborated on a number of projects, including the modern Baroque chamber opera To Hell and Back — which was premiered last year by the San Francisco period-instrument orchestra Philharmonia Baroque and starred Patti LuPone and Isabel Bayrakdarian — and the song cycles For a Look or a Touch, Statuesque and Rise and Fall. Summers, who serves as music director at Houston Grand Opera, has led a number of performances of Heggie's operas, which include The End of the Affair and the acclaimed Dead Man Walking; in February Summers is also scheduled to lead the world premiere of Three Decembers (Last Acts), another collaboration between Heggie and Scheer. "Melville's masterpiece is a microcosm of the world in which we live," said Jonathan Pell, Dallas Opera's director of artistic administration, in a press release issued by the company today. "On our ever-shrinking globe, the tensions and concerns raised by the clash of cultures and the devastating results of blind obsession — as demonstrated in the classic novel — seem especially timely. This new opera will address important issues while keeping us on the edge of our seats with what promises to be a thrilling new theatrical work!"

By Richard S. Ginell, Special to The Times June 3, 2008 With 22 seasons under its belt, Pacific Serenades still makes a major point of trying to freshen the chamber music repertoire with newly commissioned works. Sunday afternoon in Pasadena's Neighborhood Church, the series presented its 90th commission -- the U.S. premiere of "Friendly Persuasions," a song cycle for tenor by Jake Heggie (composer of opera's "Dead Man Walking") built on a great idea. Working in a form crammed to overflowing with sentimental love poetry, Heggie and his lyricist, Gene Scheer, deal instead with snapshots from the life of French composer Francis Poulenc in imaginative ways that ring true. In the first song, Poulenc has a frantic conversation with the pioneering harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, who gives him love advice -- go after that young man whom you fancy -- while demanding that he finish his new concerto for her (which turned out to be the Concert Champêtre). In another, Pierre Bernac, the baritone for whom Poulenc wrote many songs, looks on in horror as Poulenc destroys a draft of a new song. Heggie deftly and quickly sketches the multiple musical personalities of Poulenc without imitating him per se: the manic clown in the Landowska and Bernac songs; a nostalgist in the slow waltz that ends the song lamenting a female friend, Raymonde Linossier, who died young; a serious citizen in the martial air of the song featuring French Resistance poet Paul Éluard. Heggie and Scheer also give their tenor a chance to do some vocal acting as if this were an opera, a freedom that the gifted Nicholas Phan exercised to the hilt. And the unusual ensemble for which Heggie wrote this version -- harpsichord, oboe, flute and cello -- relates directly to Poulenc's sound world (the London world premiere in April was for tenor and piano). With the configuration for Heggie's songs as a base, Phan, flutist Mark Carlson, oboist Leslie Reed, cellist David Speltz and harpsichordist Patricia Mabee were elsewhere deployed in various combinations in a clutch of Baroque sonatas, trio sonatas and arias. Phan's fresh lyric tenor found more expressive outlets in three arias from J.S. Bach's Cantatas Nos. 99, 73 and 78. Reed expertly articulated everything she touched in Boismortier's Trio Sonata in E minor, Opus 37, No. 2, and Vivaldi's Sonata in C minor, RV 53. Carlson displayed graceful Baroque chops in Bach's Sonata in B minor, BWV 1030. Speltz brandished a light, leathery, period-performance-influenced tone, and Mabee underpinned everything with solid rhythmic playing. Overall, though, Bach provided more in the way of substance and ingenuity here than his Baroque colleagues.

The Seattle Times - September 14, 2006 > Seattle rates an exclusive sneak peek at Ken Burns' new film about WWII > By Judy Chia Hui Hsu > Seattle Times staff reporter > Jazz. The Civil War. Baseball. Lewis & Clark. > There's a Ken Burns documentary for almost every quintessentially American > topic. > And although his next project captures a global event - World War II - the > award-winning filmmaker has explored the tale through American > perspectives. > He chose four American towns "and just followed their sons into hell," > said Burns, who has been working on "The War" for nearly seven years. The > seven-part, 14-hour series will be broadcast on PBS in September 2007... > > ...Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Lucas and others bring to life diaries > and newspaper accounts from the period. > The musical track contains sound effects that rang true for select groups > of veterans and those at West Point who've heard it. Wynton Marsalis > composed several original tunes for "The War," and Norah Jones sings > "American Anthem." > "It's almost as good as the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,' " Burns said of > the Gene Scheer song that he heard on the radio while driving home from > his father's funeral a few years ago. "I burst into tears."... > > ..."The animating question for me in all my work is just the question who are > we - and that same kind of curiosity about what makes us tick, that we > can't possibly know where we're going unless we know where we've been."

There is the family we wish for - and the family we end up with. Last Acts follows the life of an actress and mother named Madeline and her two grown children as they struggle to know and love one another. Commisioned by Houston Grand Opera, this new chamber opera by composer Jake Heggie (Dead Man Walking; The End of the Affair) and lyricist Gene Scheer is based on a play by Terrence McNally and has been created especially for mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade ("Von Stade can do no wrong" - New York Newsday). She will be joined by two artists making their HGO debuts, soprano Kristin Clayton ("a beautiful voice, expressively used" - San Francisco Classical Voice) and baritone Keith Phares ("an utter pleasure" - The New York Times).

Philharmonia Baroque's November programs in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Berkeley, titled "Metamorphoses," will offer Locatelli's Concerto Grosso, Op. 7, No. 6 "Il pianto d'Arianna," Geminiani's The Inchanted Forrest, and the world premiere of Jake Heggie's To Hell and Back, with soloists Isabel Bayrakdarian and Patti LuPone. The short lyric drama, with libretto by Gene Scheer, is based on the legend of Persephone, queen of the Underworld.

Statuesque, ( Music by Jake Heggie Text by Gene Scheer) performed with a septet of winds and strings from the University of Kansas faculty, with Heggie at the piano. Scheer’s intelligent poetry succinctly dissected the art works at hand. His verses about Giaccometti were especially enlightening. .... The final movement “ We’re through” Winged Victory was a tour de force, a Weill inspired tango in which Castle took on the disgruntled voice of the sculpture. At the denouement she angrily dismissed an inattentive lover....Stauesque was an invigorating set, with Castle confidently conveying its sense of serious fun. OPERA NOW JAN 06

A new Musical collaboration in New Orleans involves jazz giant Wynton Marsalis and African drum master Yacub Addy that blended American jazz with intricate African rhythms.... One of the brightest highlights was Odadaa! vocalist Imani Gonzales, who delivered Billie Holiday-like heartbreak ("The pain I feel, it never goes away"--Words by Gene Scheer Music by Wynton Marsalis) in a torch song that was much deeper and resonant than just another love-gone-wrong ballad// Times Union April 24 2006

This opera, (AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY)at nearly three hours, holds your attention and conveys the story. Mr. Scheer's libretto must necessarily compress Dreiser's complex 900-page novel, with its long ruminations on status, envy and compulsion. But the essential elements are there…with an effective libretto by Gene Scheer based on Theodore Dreiser's landmark 1925 novel, "An American Tragedy" has its own kind of sweep and passion...Anthony Thommasini Dec 05

Opera-te - Thérèse Raquin ROH2 Production/Linbury Theater Tobias Picker EUROPEAN PREMIERE March 14, 2006 Thérèse Raquin is a red-blooded and sinister tale of adultery, murder, and remorse among the lower orders of Parisian Society. Zola's novel scandalised 19th Century France by presenting characters who transcended and broke the contemporary moral code. The plot charts Thérèse's journey as a young woman trapped by circumstance, driven to find escape and release through desperate action and fatal attraction, only to find that the noose has tightened even further. As its inaugural production opera-te is presenting the European premiere of Tobias Picker's gripping music drama. French mezzo-soprano Isabelle Cals makes her UK operatic debut in the title role, with Carole Wilson as her oppressive mother-in-law. Artistic Director Lee Blakeley, whose restagings of Die Zauberflöte and Faust on the ROH main stage received widespread critical acclaim last season, directs; Timothy Redmond conducts.

The world premiere of Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and based on the 1925 novel of the same name by American writer Theodore Dreiser, is on December 2. The libretto is by Gene Scheer. James Conlon conducts, with Patricia Racette as Roberta Alden, Susan Graham as Sondra Finchley, and Nathan Gunn as Clyde Griffeths. The cast also includes Dolora Zajick as Elvira Griffeths, Jennifer Larmore as Elizabeth Griffeths, Kim Begley as Samuel Griffeths, William Burden as Gilbert Griffeths, and Richard Bernstein as Orville Mason. Francesca Zambello directs, with sets designed by Adrianne Lobel in her Met debut, costumes designed by Dunya Ramicova, lighting designed by James F. Ingalls, and choreography by Doug Varone.
Subsequent performances are on December 5, 8, 12, 16, 21, 24, and 28.

"In turning the novel into a libretto, my task was to imagine this material as an opera; that is to say, not to worry about changing things, adding things, even going in different directions if it seemed more operatic, but to leave the guts of the piece well represented. Tobias gave me an enormous amount of freedom to tell the story as I saw it and to come up with something that appealed to my own imagination. The point of departure was to be faithful to the spirit of the piece but not necessarily to the letter of it. I think you can get in trouble just cutting up a book and setting it to music. When I finally handed Tobias a version that sparked his imagination, the collaboration began."