Ambitious Civil War musical worthy of hearing, debating

The lights went up for the world premiere of “Rappahannock County” at Harrison Opera House just hours before the exact moment that marks the 150th anniversary of the shot that began the American Civil War (4:30 a.m., April 12, 1861). The ensuing war remains the most horrendous and costly (620,000 dead) in American history, a conflict that profoundly changed the world and continues to haunt as well as perplex us.

A new musical theater piece about the Civil War is the stuff that puts arts festivals on the national, and international, map. The Virginia Arts Festival, with co-producers that include Virginia Opera, took the risk, and it has paid off handsomely with a work that is worthy of hearing, and debating. No matter what its future, the fact that it began here is a proud achievement that signals the daring and the audacity that have made the Virginia festival grow rapidly in national repute since 1997.

With lyrics by Mark Campbell and music by Ricky Ian Gordon, the work has quite wisely set its limits. It does not purport to be the musical theater piece about the conflict but merely a musical about it. Set in a Virginia county where no major battles took place, it concerns the lives of participants and onlookers who had much to lose.

While the piece captures the mood of the era, it fails to capture the tension. It is filled with fine little moments, but it never rises to the soaring, epic quality that some might want but won’t get. That, one suspects, was never its intent.

Besides the cost of the pro­ject, anyone who takes on the Civil War in musical terms does so with a great deal of risk. While it has been examined successfully in film and literature, the theater, and particularly the musical theater, has never been able to properly focus the scope of the assignment – and that includes a Broadway effort called “The Civil War” (which was condemned more than it should have been) and Philip Glass’ 2007 “Appomattox.”

“Rappahannock County” is perhaps more notable for what it does not do than for what it does. It deftly avoids the usual stereotypes of the genre, such as sentimentalizing the Old South, romanticizing war or oversimplifying the emancipation of slaves. It deals with vivid, yet quick, character vignettes that are modeled, quite openly, on the style of Edgar Lee Masters’ 1915 tone poem “Spoon River Anthology.”

With five singers portraying some 30 characters, the music is scored for a 17-piece chamber orchestra, which is masterfully conducted by Norfolk native and Broadway Encores series founder Rob Fisher.

The five singers, all of whom do yeoman work in both the vocal and acting categories, include baritones Mark Walters and Kevin Moreno, tenor Matthew Tuell, soprano Aundi Marie Moore and mezzo-soprano Faith Sherman. While they get a chance to display their virtuosity, the score does not provide soaring soloist moments. Moore perhaps comes closest with the touching song “Hallie-Ann,” about the death of an infant child.

Gordon’s score is a deft blurring of the lines between art song and Broadway, but one fails to immediately perceive its announced references to hymns, spirituals, marches and other music of the day. The 12-tone bent of Gordon’s music contributes to the feeling of chaos and turmoil of the era, but we wait for that memorable theme, such as maybe an homage to the titular Virginia river. It turns out to be less than impressive. The best orchestrations, done with Bruce Coughlin, emerge late in the score.

The libretto is better, although it ranges from the banal (“I was working on a nap … when the wire began to tap”) to the wonderfully evocative (“The first light squints across the ridge. The first birds warble feebly.”).

Campbell’s lyrics (subtitled although the work is in English) are best at suggesting and, indeed, vividly creating the individuals we visit ever so briefly. There is a lively little old lady who sells pies but is more committed to spying on the Yankees. (“I’d like to kill each one of them.”) There is an embalmer who makes money from the dead. (A nod, in tone, toward Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd”?) There is singer Moreno’s wonderfully ironic take on emancipation. (“Just as a way to show their thanks, they’re gonna let us run their banks.”) There is a mapmaker who laments the destruction of the land. There is a formerly enslaved couple now allowed to legally marry. (In terms of relevance, it is a reminder that there are still Americans who are not allowed to legally marry, just as there are states, namely Texas and Arizona, which are currently embroiled in the states’ rights debate.)

The projected images, ranging from moving pictures to still shots and a memorable snow effect, add much to the proceedings. They are the designs of Wendall Harrington.

While commendable in its humanity and ambition and touching for moments, “Rappahannock County” is difficult to get truly excited about. Its future, at the least, includes further outings at the homes of its co-commissioners, the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond and Texas Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

With this effort, the Virginia Arts Festival, joined by Virginia Opera, has put the “new,” and, yes, even the “daring,” in its repertoire. The result is a notable theater adventure.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com