David T. Little & Royce Vavrek: AM I BORN
Bright Shiny Things

Composer David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek clearly have a fondness for large-scale productions, their earlier operas Dog Days, JFK, and Vinkensport attesting to that predilection. Yet while AM I BORN, their 2011 oratorio for soprano soloist, choir, and orchestra, also involves large vocal and instrumental forces, it's nonetheless a pocket-sized, three-part work lasting a lean thirty-one minutes. Concision works in its favour, however: the seven movements last no longer than necessary, and consequently the material engages from start to finish. It's worth noting too that while AM I BORN does include epic passages, there are many intimate ones too, and the alternation between them is likewise enhancing.

Performing on this world-premiere recording are the new music orchestra NOVUS NY orchestra (conducted by Julian Wachner), The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and, most critical to the recording's impact, soprano soloist Mellissa Hughes. As she's featured so prominently, a great deal of the project's success falls to her, and she acquits herself superbly. Her appealing voice is abetted by an assured, crystal-clear delivery that never lapses into bellowing or excessive vibrato, and her moving performances in “The Sound of Cold,” “Parade,” and “A Picture Quite Curious” establish an immediate connection with the listener.

Grounded in a libretto exploring themes of impermanence, mortality, and fate and by focusing on a Brooklyn neighbourhood that was largely demolished to make way for the Brooklyn Bridge, the work's subject matter is imaginative and original. Inspiration came from two sources in particular: Winter Scene In Brooklyn, an 1820 painting by Francis Guy that shows the neighbourhood decimated by the bridge's construction; and Ananias Davisson's 1816 hymn “Idumea,” which opens with the words, “Am I born to die?” In a striking move, Hughes is made to personify the painting, and in having her shift from awareness of spectators viewing the painting to eventually stepping outside the frame to become part of the 'real' world, the question naturally changes from “Am I born to die?” to “Am I born?” The soprano soloist isn't alone in that personification, incidentally, as the chorus also at different moments represents the museum's visitors and the Brooklyn residents within the painting.

The work takes little time to make an impact, opening as it does with high-decibel choir declamations and robust instrumental backing for “Prelude: Am I Born; Born By Brushstroke.” A faint whiff of minimalism informs Little's writing in these initial moments, but it's present as one small part of a larger compositional toolkit. He smartly tailors his writing to the libretto, such that thunderous musical gestures accompany dramatic text passages and restrained accompaniment is used to enhance Hughes' singing. When she rises to the forefront for the first time, the sound design shifts to a gentler amalgam of piano, vibraphone, and hushed strings. The choir inaugurates the second part also, with the instrumental backing initially in a folk-march style before morphing into a quasi-baroque sequence. As memorable as the choir-centric movements are, however, it's those featuring Hughes that leave the strongest mark. For the lamentation-toned “A Picture Quite Curious,” a plaintive impression of the present's supplanting of the past crystallizes when acoustic sonorities (soprano, choir, strings) are joined by percussive accents suggesting the advent of industrialism.

February 2022