Fresh Bread is possibly the most operatic of my stage works. It’s an adaptation of a short story written by my dear friend, Elizabeth Olney. We see the opera’s three characters, Bobby, Melissa and Mother, as they mourn for Michael’s death. Michael, who was gay, was killed in a hate crime before the story begins. Bobby was Michael’s husband, Melissa was their friend, a painter, and Mother is Michael’s mother.
The story is less about the crime itself, and more about how the survivors cope with the loss, and how their relationships to each other change. Bobby and Michael’s mother become close in a way they never have before, and fill the gaps left in each other’s lives by Michael’s absence. Melissa copes with the tragedy through her art, the making of which doesn’t go entirely as she expected.
Apart from being the most operatic of my pieces for theatre, it’s also the most I’ve ever altered the source text. In fact, I changed it so much that I included the original story text in the score, so people could see why I fell in love with the story, and why I had to work on it.
In making the opera I removed whole characters, including Michael’s ghost, and most of the individual scenes themselves. As a result, I was able to make a much simpler piece streamlined for opera, but without some of my favorite parts. Fresh Bread really taught me by doing how to select dramatic moments for the stage out of sources like stories and novels rather than plays.
I also included a quote from the gospel of John that Robert Sirota, my composition professor at the time, thought suited the story perfectly. I thoroughly agreed, and created a trio at the end of the work to weave the passage into the opera. In it, Christ is dying on the cross. He turns to his disciple and his mother, and tells them that they are now mother and son. He’s saying that after his death their relationship has to take on a new dimension. That resonated very strongly for me with the theme of Mother’s and Bobby’s changing relationship.
I also want to thank the author, Elizabeth Olney, for her generosity with her story, and her openness to my adaptation.
These musicians premiered the piece:
Mother – Elisabeth Halliday
Melissa – Jenni Bank
Bobby – Alexander Kempson
Piano – Dana Scott
