Seance On A Wet Afternoon (an Opera)

PHOTO: Here Stephen Schwartz (on the right) poses for a photo with cellist Peter Sachon, for whom Schwartz wrote a classical piece. Photo by Mark Rupp.

Opera Performances

January 18 to 20, 2008 -- Schwartz Opera Reading

Stephen Schwartz's first opera, Seance on a Wet Afternoon will receive a concert reading as part of American Opera Projects' First Chance program Jan. 18-20, 2008, at Brooklyn's South Oxford Space and Manhattan's Rose Studio of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The casts for the three concert readings will feature soprano Lauren Flanigan as well as Caroline Worra, Michael Zegarski, Jessica Miller, Daniel Neer, Lucas Richter, Grant Clarke, Daniel Hoy, Garrett McClenahan and Katie Micha. AOP artistic director Steven Osgood will conduct. Charity Wicks accompanies on piano. The other two works scheduled for the First Chance program are Conrad Cummings' The Golden Gate and Moni and Mina Yakim's Unruly Horses. Tickets to the programs can be purchased by calling (718) 398-4024 or online at operaprojects.org.

World Premiere October 31, 2009

Seance on a Wet Afternoon's world premiere production will open October 31st, 2009. Commissioned by Opera Santa Barbara, the premiere will be staged at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California.

Seance On A Wet Afternoon - The Opera

Based on the novel by Mark McShane [Seance on a Wet Afternoon] and the award-winning screen adaptation by Bryan Forbes [Seance on a Wet Afternoon DVD], Séance is a psychological thriller about a medium, Myra Foster, her doting husband Bill, and the spirit of their deceased eleven-year-old son, Arthur, who speaks to Myra and is her contact for her séances.

Because Myra has never received the recognition she feels her gifts merit, they hatch a Plan: They will kidnap the daughter of a local wealthy industrialist, and keep her safe while the media frenzy over her abduction builds. When Myra has a “vision” that leads to the successful recovery of the girl and the ransom, her fame will be assured.

As The Plan is put into action, the girl’s presence in the house leads to complex psychological responses from Myra, Bill, and Arthur. The delicate balance of Myra and Bill’s relationship and Myra’s sanity itself begins to fray, as long-buried secrets are revealed. The Plan goes badly awry, and in Myra’s final séance, the drama comes to a devastating conclusion.

Stephen Schwartz's comments about the Seance project

”I have always loved, listened to, and attended opera,” says Schwartz. “When I discovered this riveting story, I knew it demanded the kind of atmospheric moodiness that my music can provide. The two main characters are psychologically complex and compelling, with passionate needs and emotions. I am stretching the thematic and motific composition of my more recent musical theatre writing to create this dynamic new opera.” -- Stephen Schwartz

Opera is the fastest-growing performance art in the country, enjoying a 35% increase in its audience in the past decade, according to the New York Times. Stephen Schwartz has long been a fan of the genre. Hear our Blog/Podcast interview with Stephen Schwartz about his opera interests. The Schwartz Scene 1st podcast: Schwartz on Opera and Wicked

From The Schwartz Scene newsletter 24 - Summer 2006

Stephen Schwartz: "Some of you may know I have taken on an exciting and terrifying new project; I have accepted a commission from Opera Santa Barbara to write an opera for them for their 2009 season, which sounds like a long way away but is actually the day after tomorrow. I've found a project, a book and movie from the 1960s called Seance On A Wet Afternoon. I've always been an opera aficionado, but the opera world is completely foreign to me, so needless to say I am finding the whole project a scary proposition. But I am eager to get started, get writing, and enter this terra incognita...."

From The Schwartz Scene newsletter 25 - Fall 2006

Stephen Schwartz: "I'm looking forward to meeting while out here with the folks from Opera Santa Barbara to cement the schedule for the opera I am writing for them, SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON...."

From The Schwartz Scene newsletter 26 - Winter 2007

Stephen Schwartz: "...Work continues on the opera I am writing, SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON. Its premiere is scheduled for October 2009 at the newly renovated Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California (assuming the renovation of the Grenada is actually completed by then.)"

From The Schwartz Scene newsletter 28 - Summer 2007

I am sitting in a beautiful apartment upstairs in the Adirondack house of Patrice Munsel, the former opera star famous as The Merry Widow. There is a huge picture window overlooking Schroon Lake, and the sun is just rising over the eastern hills. These are the surprisingly luxurious accommodations they have given me as I work just up the road at the Seagle Music Colony, or as I am calling it, "opera camp", where I am doing a workshop of the first act of my opera-in-progress Seance on a Wet Afternoon.

The Seagle Colony was founded just after the first world war, and for the past several years under the direction of Darren Woods, it has been a place for promising opera students to hone their skills and take classes in acting, movement, audition technique, etc. between their graduation from college and the beginning of their professional careers. Darren has very generously made available this talented group of young people, who are giving me a chance to hear what I've written and improve it. I've only been here a couple of days, but I have already learned so much about the piece. I know by the time the workshop is over two weeks from now, it will have provided me with a major step forward.

About Seance on a Wet Afternoon film

Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)

Seance on a Wet Afternoon (B&W)

In an Oscar nominated Best Actress performance, Kim Stanley plays Myra, a deluded woman who sways her weak-willed husband, played by Richard Attenborough. The dark film drama won a slew of awards.

Plot: Myra, a self-styled psychic in London, concocts a scheme to gain celebrity. She convinces Billy, her weak-willed husband, to kidnap the young daughter of wealthy parents. She and Billy will demand money, and then she will go to the parents with extra-sensory messages that will help the police find the child and the ransom. The plan unfolds beautifully, except that after her first visit to the parents, the police want to check her out. He's scared. As her delusions worsen, Bill realizes Myra may not want the child found alive. Behind it all is also the death at birth, years before, of their only child, whom they've named Arthur and who is Myra's contact with the beyond.

Schwartz's Choral Song

"Keramos"

One Is the All by the Choral project includes this lovely choral piece by Stephen Schwartz.

Question: I know the work was commissioned by the Choral Project. Did you choose the text? If so, how did you come upon it? How did you decide which verses to include, omit, and the ordering of verses?

Answer from Stephen Schwartz: The text was originally suggested to me by Daniel Hughes, the director of the Choral Project. I liked it very much when he sent it to me, and it immediately suggested music to me, particularly the constant, circular motion you mention. I went through the poem and made decisions about what verses to include and in what order, based on my own responses to the content and emotion of the poem. I tried to arrive at a structure that had its own natural build and "story".

Question: How do you define "Keramos"? I have found several translations, and since the utterances of the word sound like various layers of the movement of the wheel, I wondered how you see, or hear the translation of the word.

Answer from Stephen Schwartz: I was been told by friends who speak Greek, when I asked, that "keramos" can mean both the "ceramic" and the "ceramicist" (or "potter".) I tended to think of it more as the former, as the clay that is being formed and reformed by the invisible Potter, be it nature or the universe or God.

Opera for Novices

Catch up with Opera.

Bravo!: A Guide to Opera for the Perplexed

From a Library Journal review: "if those who are baffled will pull Scherer's book off the shelf, they soon will see the form clearly through the eyes of an ardent fan. The book is chock full of opera facts, history, and lore. Scherer's discussions of the various styles of opera (Italian, German, French, Russian, English, and American) are concise yet well connected to the overall picture."

Opera is growing--in the size of its audience, in the number of companies, in general interest--and is attracting a lot of attention among younger, more visually oriented people. But opera can be intimidating to the uninitiated: it's sung in foreign languages and has odd little customs (such as women singing the parts of young boys, and hefty middle-aged singers portraying teenaged lovers) that may be disconcerting at first. But opera needn't be at all intimidating, thanks to the miracle of supertitles (like subtitles, but projected above the stage), the advent of generations of singers who work at staying in shape, and the appearance of reference works like Opera for Dummies that are designed to remove the snobbery and mystery from opera.