Opera Philadelphia Opens a New Season
Missy Mazzoli's New Opera Asks: Do You Hear a Hum
By: Susan Hall - Sep 22, 2024
Opera Philadelphia is a company that has done everything right for the past decade and yet continues to struggle to reach an audience. On April 25 it was announced that Anthony Roth Costanzo, a Princeton-educated counter tenor who not only attracts audiences as a singing artist but also has successfully experimented with programming, would begin his term as general director and president on June 1. His first public act as head of the company was to offer tickets at $11 and then pay-what-you-want or can on top of that.
The first production under his leadership is a new opera work by Missy Mazzoli, whose career Opera Philadelphia jump-started with Breaking Waves, a new work based on the Lars von Trier film.
Mazzoli went on to write other operas. She participated in a three-year mentorship program under Riccardo Muti at the Chicago Symphony. Her music engages and attracts.
She wanted a ‘sonic’ setting for the new work. Jordan Tannahill wrote a seven-page story based on a cult that emerged when some citizens of a small town heard a hum that no other members of the community could hear. His work became a novel and also a tv series featuring Rebecca Hall.
In discussions of the work, much has been made of the cult that developed around ‘special hearers’ who could detect the hum. For an opera, and for the composer, how the hum itself is treated will be fascinating to watch (and listen to).
Hums have been heard in Taos, New Mexico,Windsor, Ontario and the British Isles. Britons who experience the hum describe the hum as like a "diesel truck with its engine idling." The electronic environment of Britain has been blamed for the hum: transformers, high-voltage transmission lines, and pulsed radars are all candidate hum-makers. Some people somehow convert pulses of electromagnetic energy into a perception of sound.
The British hum has become a nuisance - to those who can hear it - during the past 20 years.. H. Witherington, an unhappy hum-hearer, has for years driven around Britain at night when things are quieter, plotting places where the hum can be heard. He has found that the sound follows the gas pipelines and extends for several kilometers on each side. Houses, he finds, tend to amplify the sound, because closed rooms sometimes create resonant condition.
Of course, we know that your human body is a symphony of sounds, some of which resemble hums. They can be heard by the person experiencing the ‘hum’ inside them. Schizophrenics often hear voices that no one else hears.
So how will Mazzoli deal with the hum? Visit the Academy of Music in Philadelphia to find out.
Tickets are scarce. The $11 starting point seems to have worked. On opening night the parquet, parquet circle, balcony boxes and balcony are all sold out. A few seats remain at the top of the house. The second night has only amphitheater side seats available and the third performance has no seats left at all.
Bravo to Opera Philadelphia for continuing the operatic adventure.
Try for a ticket here.