"Repetitive and trivializing are the words, unilluminating (and unhummable) the music -- together they reduce these 3 real people to cartoon characters as cardboard as any from an early Verdi opera! Hugely disappointing, especially coming from the Houston Opera. Avoid at all costs -- especially your own! Ugh."
Truly wonderful score marred by a truly bad libretto.
Augustus Caesar, Ph.D. | Eugene, Oregon United States | 04/29/2004
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Michael Daugherty is one of the most idiosyncratic of modern American composers. His work shows a consistent, perhaps occasionally tiring, obsession with pop culture, and despite his awesome technique (he has a Ph.D. in composition and worked at IRCAM with Pierre Boulez), his work is almost invariably accessible and melodic. His debut opera, "Jackie O," is tantalizing evidence of his diverse talents. This is a man who understands how to write for the human voice, and the music here is extraordinarily eclectic, with Verdiesque arias and brilliantly inventive contrapuntal vocal excursions standing beside catchy pop tunes and blues riffs. The scoring is superb as well. Daugherty's resourcefulness and energy are breathtaking. Indeed, this could have been a great new contribution to the operatic repertory if it weren't for Wayne Koestenbaum's horrible libretto. When he's not trying really, really hard to be profound, Koestenbaum is laboring to be funny; in both attempts, he fails resoundingly. This "collage" libretto ranges from fair to deeply embarrassing, and ultimately collapses under the weight of its own cliches. A skilled librettist with an original mind could have made something good out of this concept (which isn't that great in itself). Unfortunately, Koestenbaum has a pedestrian mind and a heavy-handed "wit." So there you have it.All in all, "Jackie O" manages to be rewarding thanks to its extraordinary music, despite the pretentions of its libretto."
Yeah, but...
Augustus Caesar, Ph.D. | 09/10/1998
(2 out of 5 stars)
"So many mixed feelings... Sometimes I feel like Classical music needs a swift kick in the butt, and those are the times when I think Michael Daugherty's irreverence borders on the heroic. Then sometimes I'm listening to Michael Daugherty's music and I feel like his irreverence acts to trivialize what he's doing, to that point that nothing's left. So, when listening to Jackie O I first thought, "Wow, he's got Andy Warhol as a character and operatic voices singing blues riffs...cool!" But as I listened, "Jackie's Song", which is a lovely, melancholy solo cello line at the opening, gets repeated so often and in such irreverent way that I felt he was trivializing Jackie's grief. By the end of the opera, her grief is sort of boiled down to this one melody and one line of dialoge that she gets stuck singing over and over...the repetitiveness makes you want to say "So your husband got shot...get over it!" Irreverence and wit don't necessarily mean callousness and shallowness, but that's what ends up happening in this opera. I'll keep listening to Daugherty, though, because maybe sooner or later he'll hit on the right mix of humor and depth."
Great fun, and sometimes unexpectedly moving
Augustus Caesar, Ph.D. | 04/04/1999
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This isn't up to the level of John Adams's magnificent NIXON IN CHINA (the clear inspiration for this opera, as for so many other contemporary operas), but the music is quite enjoyable and clever, and Koestenbaum's libretto shows real wit and flashes of insight. (If only he had been persuaded not to write the pompous author's foreword in the liner notes...) It's best to treat this as a song cycle rather than a proper opera, although many of the numbers are very theatrical and would work very well on the stage, particularly the infectiously boppy "1968" ensemble which opens the work and makes some hilarious observations about celebrity and pop culture, such as in the bluesy riffs for Liz Taylor in this number where she wrily muses on her fame--"even my dressing room was five times normal." Some of the numbers don't work (like the pretentious Flame Duet), but then at other times Koestenbaum and Daugherty really pull it off, as in the torrid trysting duet for Ari Onassis and Maria Callas which keeps being interrupted by Jackie repeating to the audience her famous words of gratitude from her Chrsitmas, 1963 television adrress to the nation. (The point here is that what Jackie symbolizes to the world is inevitably going to upstage the petty and sordid amores of Onassis and Callas.) And in the last number, the creative team actually convinced me that their Jackie was an authentic American voice and not just a shallow glossy-haired celebrity. The parts are universally well-sung--a fun investment all around."