Music, theater commemorate Civil War anniversary

NORFOLK

Ricky Ian Gordon was in a panic. A wide-eyed, hands-fidgeting, deep-breathing panic.

Early Monday afternoon, he tried to down a salad. But the world premiere in Norfolk of the new music-theater piece he composed, called "Rappahannock County," was set for Tuesday, a little more than a week away. And things weren't going as he had hoped.

"A show becomes something in a rehearsal room," he began. "It's personal, it's intimate and you grow really attached to it."

When it moves onto the stage for final preparations, "it has to find its way in an entirely different space. It's a really tricky transition for me, always.

"I'm afraid the show will fail and everything will become desperate and lost. That's the fear."

Gordon had slept maybe one hour that night, because he had driven in the wee hours back to Norfolk from Washington, where he had attended performances of other of his works that displeased him.

Then, in that morning's rehearsal of "Rappahannock County," set in Virginia during the Civil War, the orchestra distressed him. It had sounded great days earlier. He couldn't understand what happened.

"It usually does work out," he acknowledged, when reminded of his many successes. He's a prolific composer of operas, musicals and songs, with commissions by such prestigious venues as Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Playwrights Horizon.

"Not always."

Three days earlier, the cast of five singers ran through the 90-minute piece without stopping.

Gordon sat in a chair, a few feet from the singers, as they acted out their songs in full operatic voice, filling the large rehearsal room with mostly melodic, often heart-tugging music wedded to affecting lyrics.

The piece consists of 21 songs that convey characters in situations and move chronologically through the Civil War. No story line, no narration, no recurring characters. Minimal sets and props.

"Rappahannock County" commemorates the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War - which is Tuesday, the anniversary of the first shot by the rebels on Fort Sumter off Charleston, S.C.

The piece was commissioned by the Virginia Arts Festival and Virginia Opera, and it will premiere at Harrison Opera House with additional performances April 16 and 17. The other partners are the University of Richmond and the University of Texas at Austin; the piece will be mounted at both schools in the fall.

Ed Ayers, president of the University of Richmond, is a top scholar and author on the American Civil War and was creative advisor for "Rappahannock County." He helped guide librettist Mark Campbell as he researched the war and unearthed real situations that fed the creation of characters.

Campbell also is much in demand. His new musical "And the Curtain Rises" just closed at Arlington's Signature Theatre, and his comic opera "The Inspector" premieres later this month at Wolf Trap, also in Northern Virginia.

Ayers scrutinized "Rappahannock County" for historical authenticity, Gordon said.

Several of the singers said the lyrics rang true to them and remained moving, even after repeated hearings.

Every song has a dramatic arc in it, said baritone Mark Walters. "It's kind of a little mini-drama, each little piece. It feels very real to me, especially when I'm listening to the other singers onstage.

"Two of the songs the sopranos sing I can't listen to. I get too drawn in," Walters said.

One of those sopranos, Faith Sherman, said that to keep from crying she had learned to "stare into my laundry basket," a stage prop, while others sang heartbreaking pieces.

Gordon stared, rapt, as his and Campbell's songs played out before him. He watched Walters as a preacher reassures his congregation that "slavery is not a sin," and tenor Matthew Tuell sings about Virginia being up in arms about "states' rights."

He mouthed the words as Tuell sang the part of a teacher who doesn't want to go to war.

"Ugly happens mighty quickly

When war's announced.

Reason, logic, wisdom, judgment -

All get trounced."

Gordon watched Sherman humorously sing about selling pies to the Yankee soldiers so she could get close enough to spy. Baritone Kevin Moreno showed how he made himself small and hid among his owners to hear the latest war news, which he then spread among the slaves.

When soprano Aundi Marie Moore sang about her infant dying just after she found her freedom, Gordon rocked a little in his seat, his face reddening.

A darkly comic embalmer, a conflicted soldier facing the gallows, a woman returning to a home and land that had been destroyed. The vignettes present a wide range of moods and viewpoints through emotionally expansive music that was "sewn together by the river," Gordon said.

He referred to a recurring musical motif, an unusual time signature, that to the composer sounds like "roiling waters."

To him, it sounds like the troubled waters of the Rappahannock River, which was a dividing line between Union and Confederate soldiers during the war. Slaves crossed it to find their freedom.

Tuesday morning, Gordon awoke refreshed, having slept through the night. "Rappahannock County" looked brighter to him.

"I never get used to the terror," he said, recounting how he felt the previous day when he saw his and Campbell's show move onto the stage from the rehearsal room, "where the piece was born."

"You're taking your fully developed baby into the big, bad world."

After lunch, the team realized that a large piece of fabric batting on the rear stage wall of the theater was absorbing the sound of the orchestra, preventing the players from hearing one another. The crew had installed the batting as a screen for the projections of Civil War-era imagery that will appear throughout the show. It will be swapped out for a different material, he said.

"Now we're dealing with it." When the crew removed the batting, the sound instantly improved, he said.

An ensemble of 17 Virginia Symphony Orchestra players will perform, including percussionist Rob Cross, director of the Virginia Arts Festival. Rob Fisher, a Norfolk native who is a top Broadway conductor, will lead.

"Now I'm feeling excited again. Yesterday, by the end of the day, it was a good day. I saw things I was really worried about, like how are the singers going to follow the conductor when he's behind them?"

The stage has been extended out over the orchestra pit, to put the singers closer to the audience. The players and Fisher will be behind the singers, but they will see him on monitors set in the floor and on the balcony.

In Gordon's mind, the piece opens and ends, musically speaking, "with a question: 'Will this happen again?' Of course, the answer is yes, it's happening everywhere.

"Civil war is not over. Even if this civil war is over in the United States, it's not over in people's hearts. It's not over in people's minds.

"It's happening in Libya right this moment."

He's hoping for the piece "to open up a conversation about man, and about the power of love, the power of equality.

"The power of people sitting down at a table and talking, rather than shooting each other."

Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com