Opera Colorado’s The Shining review: a creepy-competent production
“Heeeeeere’s Johnny!” … Jack Nicholson’s mad, left-glancing, toothy gaze through the broken door of the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film version of Stephen King’s The Shining certainly scared the hell out of me.
Opera Colorado has brought The Shining to the Denver stage in a production first presented by Minnesota Opera in 2016. The enterprise is an attempt to make opera more “relevant” to modern audiences than, say the blood and guts of Richard Strauss’ Salome’s severed head of John the Baptist.
Really? Is a 1980’s horror flick, whose blood flowing elevators mean nothing to anyone under the age of 60, going to draw in yoof? Will it provoke a flicker of interest in regular opera-goers — or simply send them screaming through the exits?
Straw poll time. A fellow audience member — yes, I went to Denver and watched the ghastly film beforehand to prime my memory — turned out to be a season ticket holder.
“Whadya think”? He was shocked to be addressed. Reluctant a first to reply at all. Eventually, when he twigged I probably wasn’t Jack Nicholson — no axe in sight, a harmless Brit — he mumbled pathetically, “Well, it wasn’t Mozart, was it?” I fear Opera Colorado has lost a season-ticket holder.
And the new generation? The son of my Colorado host for the weekend, with no affinity to opera, took in a later performance of The Shining. His verdict?
“I thought it was quite entertaining. The storyline was compelling, and I thought the music was creepy and cool. I really liked the way they managed the set and created the scene changes.”
That damning with faint praise “quite” apart, we’re getting somewhere here. He gives the score by Paul Moravec a better rating than I. The music seemed to me to be bland and unfocused, apart from during some of the big “reveal” moments. Give me some dissonance to jangle the nerves.
A quick reprise of Bernard Herrmann’s Murder music for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho — obviously the inspiration for Kubrick’s film, even though he might not have known it — makes the point. That soundtrack of screeching violins, violas, and cellos was an original, all-strings piece. Those elegant instruments were trashed. Reduced to the status of a rasping saw. Unforgettable, and much copied since.
The compare and contrast point is frequently made by film buffs. The flickchart website has aficionados falling out. Most rate Psycho as the better film. Please God, Moravec, don’t spot this. Colorado Opera might commission Psycho, the opera. That would be a motel too far.
Anyway, Hitchcock’s Bates Motel was in California and the follow-up Bates Motel TV series — a true manifestation of a serial killer — was in Oregon. We are probably safe.
My friend’s son is spot on with the set and scene changes. This is a superbly slick production in which Colorado Opera can take great pride, using the projection onto set techniques I first encountered in New York City Opera’s recent The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.
David Radamés Toro, a specialist in modern era opera, assisted in the original Minnesota Opera production of The Shining. Working with Eric Simonson in 2016, his expertise in movement ensured there is never a static moment. He did not cross the Rubicon to the “musical” shore — there were no big “numbers” — but he came close. This was opera.
Composer Paul Moravec is also an academic, known as a “new tonalist”. What on earth does that mean? Chopping the rough bits of early period ear-blasters like Berg and Schoenberg? Maybe so. But The Shining needed visceral. Instead, Moravec offers something more mellow, from professors’ academe glades.
This score, aimed at the head, did not really match a storyline punching the gut.
Ah! The storyline. Forget the film. We have no blood-pouring elevators, no kid, Danny, on a mini trike pedalling furiously around the hotel, encountering spooky, murdered twin girls.
Sidebar: When our seven-year-old son, attending a Glasgow primary school, was offered the role of wild-cycling Danny in a Barr’s Irn Bru advert for £10, he leapt at the chance. The footage of him pedalling furiously around the classroom, eyes flashing, fuelled by the “Made from Girders” tooth-destroying orange gunk, scared the bejeesus out of fellow pupils.
Thankfully, it never saw the light of day in a broadcast ad. Like Irn Brew, it was canned. Too frightening. Even versions published on YouTube have now been removed, presumably on the grounds of good taste. No wunderkind film star career for him. He peaked at £10.
Here’s what happens in The Shining.
ACT ONE – An October Day In The Colorado Rockies
The Torrance family, Jack, Wendy, and their son Danny are excited to spend the winter as caretakers of a grand hotel, closed for the season. Mr Hallorann, the hotel cook, and Mr Ullman, the hotel manager, have stayed to meet them.
Ullman confronts Jack about information he has discovered regarding his guest’s past, including his addiction to alcohol and his violent temper. Jack assures Ullman he has given up alcohol and the reports of his violent behaviour are overblown.
Ullman then introduces Jack to Watson, who teaches Jack how to maintain the hotel’s antiquated boiler, which will explode if the pressure gets too high.
Jack, an aspiring writer, finds documents related to the hotel’s history. “Every hotel has secrets,” Watson explains, including a past caretaker, Delbert Grady, who murdered his wife and two daughters, and Mrs Massey, who committed suicide in the bathtub of room 217.
Meanwhile, Hallorann tells Danny he knows he can sense things and communicate with his mind. Hallorann calls this ability “the shining.” He tells Danny that, if ever he is in trouble, he should use the shining to “Holler for Hallorann.” Great slogan!
A Few Weeks Later
All seems well, but, Danny feels a strong pull to room 217, an urge he tries to resist. One night, Jack and Wendy realise Danny is locked in the bathroom. Jack breaks down the door and finds Danny comatose.
Jack shakes Danny violently, reminding Wendy that he has hurt Danny before. Jack loses his temper. Finally, Danny revives slightly, uttering the mysterious words “redrum” before his parents get him to bed. Spoiler. Not the horse. Try reading “redrum” backwards. Got it?
Remorseful over his loss of temper, Jack retreats to the hotel lobby where the ghost of his late, abusive father, Mark Torrance, haunts Jack.
The next day, Jack discovers a scrapbook about the hotel’s history. As he reads, ghosts from The Overlook’s past appear.
Great guest list. Mafia hitmen, the murderous caretaker and his deceased daughters, and a flurry of guests from a wild masked ball. Inspired, Jack decides to write a book about The Overlook’s sordid history.
Danny enters room 217 where he discovers the living corpse of Mrs Massey resting in the bathtub. The ghoul attacks Danny, leaving the boy soaked, with bruises on his neck, and lipstick smeared on his face.
Discovering Danny in this state, Jack and Wendy frantically try to decide what to do. Wendy wants to leave the hotel, but Jack fears they will die in the approaching snowstorm if they try to escape.
Jack asserts his role as provider and protector of his family even as a chorus of ghosts urge him to harm Danny and Wendy. The cacophony of voices grows until, finally, Danny hollers for Hallorann!
ACT TWO – A Day in December at The Overlook Hotel
A now dishevelled Jack tends to the boiler of The Overlook. Needs booze. The spectre of Delbert Grady appears. Grady instructs Jack to “correct,” meaning “kill,” Wendy and Danny, in order to please “The Manager,” the evil spirit of the hotel.
Jack wanders the hotel, mentally unhinged, and finds himself in the midst of a roaring party of ghosts, starring his deceased father as the main entertainer. He is served a cocktail by Lloyd, the inscrutable bartender.
After the ghosts disappear, Jack lashes out at Wendy, fully convinced she is an enemy he must destroy. Jack tries to strangle Wendy, but she knocks him out. Together, Wendy and Danny drag Jack to the kitchen where they lock him inside the pantry.
As they leave, Wendy takes a knife from the kitchen, ready to defend herself and her son, if necessary.
Grady’s ghost helps Jack escape from the pantry, leaving him a large croquet mallet to bludgeon Wendy and Danny.
As Wendy enters the lobby, Jack attacks her with the mallet. Wendy dodges his blows and stabs him before running to her room and locking the door. There, Wendy discovers that Danny has gone. Jack uses the croquet mallet to smash through the bedroom door — that “Here’s Johnny” moment — but, when he reaches through to unlock it, Wendy slices his hand with a razor.
Before Jack can retaliate, Grady appears and instructs Jack to find Danny. Just then, Hallorann arrives to save Danny, but Jack knocks him down before going after Danny. Refusing to cower, Danny sings the melody Jack had sung to him earlier, a song about how much his father loves him.
Jack collapses in shame and screams for Danny to run. Danny reaches his mother and Hallorann and warns them that the boiler is about to explode. The three of them run to escape the explosion.
The ghosts of the hotel order Jack to loosen the boiler valves and relieve the pressure. Jack refuses and lets the boiler explode, destroying himself and the hotel, to save his family.
The opera ends with Wendy and Danny recovering at a summer cabin months later. Hallorann watches over them — his role vis a vis Wendy a tad ambiguous — while Danny fishes. Before saying goodbye, Hallorann tells Danny to be strong and keep hoping. Danny asks for help. Hallorann replies, “You’re doing fine by yourself, little man.”
The cast is superb, the standout being Kevin Deas, a truly sonorous American bass baritone. He is the conscience of the opera, intervening as the harbinger of long-term optimism. The North Star, both for Jack, who chooses redemption through dodgy boiler maintenance, and Danny, who will have to live his life coping with that Shining gift – or curse.
Kelly Kaduce, an American soprano, was familiar with her role as Wendy, having first performed the role with Minnesota Opera in 2016. She had the strength of voice to portray Wendy as a convincing character, totally unlike the freaked-out Wendy of the film, played screamingly badly by Shelley Duvall.
The key role of Jack Torrance is taken on by Edward Parks. Anyone hoping for an eye-bulging Jack Nicholson look-alike would have been disappointed by the nuanced American baritone. The moral ambiguity of Stephen King’s original character was well articulated.
Opera Colorado Orchestra and Chorus are of high quality. Maestro Ari Pelto, the company’s musical director has a reputation for delivering “poetic, earthy, vigorous and highly individual” performances. I thought he wrung as much as he could from the score and would have made great use of a few more dramatic passages.
The Ellie Caulkins Opera House — I’m assured Ellie is one tough cookie, the First Lady of Denver Opera — is a 2,225-seater auditorium. Great acoustics, but each of the newly installed plush, annoyingly sound-absorbent seats is a torture device.
Much vaunted as “cutting edge”, they certainly cut elbows, as the armrests are uncomfortable plastic stubs. The backs move uncontrollably in Lay-Z-Boy recliner chair style. Job lot from a failed avant-garde designer project.
The auditorium is part of a vibrant cultural centre. When we emerged an impromptu jazz session had popped up in the covered walkway.
Next season Colorado Opera celebrates its 40th anniversary. There will be three mainstage operas —Verdi’s Rigoletto, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and Puccini’s Turandot. The Korngold catches my eye.
He is a much-neglected operatic composer, dismissed too often as a film score lightweight. The opera is another ghostly, creepy plot based on the novel Bruges-la-Morte by George Rodenbach.
Based on The Shining I think Colorado Opera will mount a memorable, creepy-competent production. So, it will be back to Denver for me — hallucinations, make-believe, bizarre encounters, and all. And then there’s the opera. What’s not to like?