WSU debuts Cather-inspired opera, ‘December Night,’ with 2 upcoming performances
Composer Lance Hulme felt the inspiration for his newest opera close to home.
“December Night” is based on a chapter of Nebraska native author Willa Cather’s “Death Comes for the Archbishop,” written in 1927.
“I love Willa Cather’s writing,” he said, “and my mother was a Willa Cather scholar, so I know quite a bit about it.”
The piece will get its world premiere this week by the Wichita State Opera Department in two performances, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Thursday and WSU’s Miller Concert Hall in Duerksen Fine Arts Center on Friday.
Hulme, associate music professor at North Carolina Central University, began writing the piece during COVID, and offered it to as many university opera programs as he could find.
He said Cather considered “Archbishop” one of her favorite works.
“One thing I really like about that book is that it’s a series of vignettes,” Hulme said. “This particular opera is a vignette from that book, one chapter, and it’s a relatively short chapter. It really struck me as quite beautiful and quite meaningful for our times as well, because it’s a story of a runaway slave and that makes it an exciting thing to be writing about right now.”
Cather, he said, was a “huge fan of music” and opera, and one of her books, “The Song of the Lark,” is about an opera singer.
“Her writing is lyrical already, and it was for adaptation more than anything else, not much interpolation or rewriting to make it more musical,” said Hulme, who worked with an anonymous librettist.
“Archbishop” takes place in the 1850s, after the Mexican-American War.
“Much of the book is his impression of being in that environment of the Southwest and the indigenous cultures there,” Hulme said. “Much of the chapter is his reflecting and aware that he’s in a very different environment.”
A Native American flute and two Zuni folk songs are incorporated into the score, he said.
Hulme will conduct “December Night” in its two performances, backed by a pianist and flute player.
“This stretched from very tonal music, very approachable music, to more complex things as well, although I stay in the more approachable side of this, because it’s intended for the general public and to be sung by collegiate-level singers,” he said.
“December Night” is Hulme’s third full-length opera, after pieces based on Thornton Wilder’s “And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead” and the John Fowles novel “The Ebony Tower.” He has done several scenes based on John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces,” and dreams of writing a full-length opera based on the work.
Alan Held, director of the WSU opera program and a globally acclaimed baritone, said pieces like “December Night,” as well as recent performances of the Holocaust opera “The Path to Heaven” and “The Scarlet Letter,” give the student singers a chance to perform in a variety of styles.
“The story is approachable,” Held said. “The music is difficult, there’s no question about it, but I thought this was a challenge.”
The performance will also be featured in a regional conference of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, which WSU is hosting the following week.
“And we’re doing a world premiere,” Held added. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
‘DECEMBER NIGHT’ by WSU Opera
▪ 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7; Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 430 N. Broadway, free.
▪ 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8; Miller Concert Hall, Duerksen Fine Arts Center, Wichita State; tickets are $20, with discounts for seniors, faculty/staff and children/students, from https://wichita.edu/fineartsboxoffice or 316-978-3233.