Review: Michael Hersch’s AND WE, EACH Challenges the Audience at Every Turn

Michael Hersch took no prisoners with his new opera, AND WE, EACH, a production of the Baltimore musical organization, Mind on Fire, which had its New York premiere on February 6 at National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

By this description I mean the composer made no concessions in his opera to writing music that could be easily absorbed or a libretto (here, created by Hersch with the poetry of Shane McCrae) that was simple to follow or even devising an evening that was shorter rather than longer, as is frequently the norm today.

As I later contemplated this new work—an exploration of the “treacherous territories of relationships between individuals, within societies and, ultimately, the collapse of both”—I thought of a quote from the composer Elliott Carter about the modernist music of Stefan Wolpe (with whom I studied music theory early in my life): “He does everything wrong and it comes out right.”

What led me from Hersch’s piece to these words from one of the 20th century’s leading composers about another? Because, despite the difficulties I found in assimilating the work, I found it mesmerizing—thought-provoking in ways I can’t explain.

That he even calls it an “opera” brings up a whole other set of questions. The further we go along in the 21st century, the more I find that the definition of “what is an opera?” and how an audience relates to it, less clear. Hersch does nothing to elucidate his goal, at least to my ears.

Those who have attended the annual Prototype Festival in New York—or have heard works that have been showcased at it performed in other venues—know that pieces that find themselves brought together under the rubric of “new music” or "opera" do not necessarily appear to have much in common. That was clearly true at National Sawdust: I certainly do not recall hearing, or seeing, anything like AND WE, EACH before.

The tumultuous work, directed by James Matthew Daniel, uses poetry by Shane McCrae, with whom the composer seems to have forged a mutual admiration society that reaches back a decade or more. McCrae describes Hersch’s music as having “both tumultuous darkness and great intelligence” and concludes that he can’t think of “another composer so suited to expressing with music what I’ve tried to say with words.”

I found myself in awe of the skills of the performers involved in the evening’s endeavor to interpret a score that appeared, for me, to have no center or tonal shape to it. Yet, under the superb leadership of conductor Tito Munoz, the musicians involved managed to treat its performance as child’s play.

The two singers—soprano Ah Young Hong and baritone Jesse Blumberg (who also found themselves wrapped in a style somewhere between a papier mache project and an ancient mummy in the course of the evening)—and the quintet of instrumentalists Emi Ferguson (flute), Gleb Kanasevich (bass clarinet), Adda Kridler (violin), Leah Asher (viola) and Coleman Itzkoff (cello)—were virtuosic.

Kevin Tuttle’s effective set design with John McAfee’s lighting, skillfully incorporated filmed dance by choreographers LaTeisha Melvin and Orlando M. Johnson, photographed by Tyler Davis and Seth Herzog.

In short, the evening was a creative success, easily assimilable or not.

Photo credit: James Matthew Daniel

To post a comment, you must register and login.