When Leonard Foglia was invited to direct based on Herman Melville鈥檚 masterpiece about a white whale, his first reaction was: 鈥淢oby-Dick. That鈥檚 great!鈥�
鈥淭hen I ran to a used bookstore and got the book,鈥� he recalled, 鈥渁nd I thought: 鈥極h my God, what am I in for here?鈥� It鈥檚 so daunting. I didn鈥檛 panic, but I thought, 鈥楬ow do we do this?鈥欌��
How he and his collaborators did it will be on display at the beginning March 3. The opera is composed by Jake Heggie to a libretto crafted by Gene Scheer.
To begin with, Scheer had to whittle down to a 64-page libretto. He kept as much of Melville鈥檚 language as possible, and estimates that 40% to 50% of his libretto can be found in the original text, though he often tweaked the phrasing to make it more singable.
Heggie and his initial partner, (who withdrew for health reasons), had already decided to lop off the opening chapters, which take place on land. They set the entire opera aboard the whale-hunting ship Pequod.
Another crucial change was renaming the narrator, calling him Greenhorn to reflect his status as a novice aboard the ship. Now the book鈥檚 famous opening line, 鈥淐all me Ishmael,鈥� is transposed to the very end of the opera when the character has matured.
鈥淚n the novel, Ishmael is telling a story that happened many years ago,鈥� Scheer said. 鈥淏ut in the theater, you want to see it happen in real time. 鈥� We鈥檙e watching him take in all the experiences so that when he says 鈥楥all me Ishmael,鈥� he鈥檚 ready to write the book. In essence, this opera is the education of Ishmael.鈥�
Tenor Stephen Costello, who is performing the role for the fifth time and is the lone cast holdover from the Dallas premiere in 2010, sees his character as 鈥渢he only one who really has an arc.
鈥淗e goes on the Pequod because there was nothing for him on land,鈥� Costello said. 鈥淪o he鈥檚 either going to die at sea or figure out who he is.鈥�
In addition to Costello, the Met cast includes tenor Brandon Jovanovich as the vengeance-obsessed Captain Ahab. Pip, his cabin boy, is written as a 鈥渢rousers role鈥� (a male character portrayed by a woman) and will be sung by soprano Janai Brugger. Starbuck, the first mate, will be baritone Peter Mattei, and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green will sing the part of Queequeg. Karen Kamensek conducts the eight performances through March 29.
The opera, commissioned to celebrate the opening of a new opera house in Dallas, has been a success from the beginning, drawing praise from audiences and critics 鈥� and even scholars.
Bob Wallace, a professor at Northern Kentucky University and past president of the Melville Society, admired the opera so much that he wrote a book about its creation.
鈥淪cheer and Heggie did a brilliant job of shrinking the novel to make it fit the stage and yet preserve so much of the essence of it,鈥� he said in an interview.
As much as critics admired Scheer鈥檚 adaptation and Heggie鈥檚 tuneful, atmospheric and at times gripping score, they lavished special praise on the physical production, with sets by Robert Brill and projections by Elaine J. McCarthy.
The action, Steve Smith 鈥減layed out against a multimedia-enriched staging that ranged from striking to near-miraculous.鈥�
Perhaps the most stunning effect is the way animated projections superimposed on a climbing wall that is curved a bit like a skateboard ramp create the illusion of the crew leaving the Pequod to board three whaling boats.
鈥淎 lot of the excitement and thrill of watching this is due to the work of the production team,鈥� Scheer said. 鈥淟enny kept saying to me, 鈥橸ou imagine it the way you want it, and let me figure out how to do it.鈥�
That often involved imposing unusual physical demands on the singers. For instance, when Pip gets lost at sea, his character sings the equivalent of an operatic mad scene dangling high above the stage, with projections making it appear he鈥檚 treading water.
鈥淚 said to Janai when we first rehearsed it,鈥� Foglia recalled, 鈥淥K, you can just get mad at me now, because you have to sing your hardest aria hanging from not even a full harness, just a single wire.鈥�
In addition, Queequeg and Greenhorn climb up and down ladders to sing at the top of the mastheads. Ahab, who has lost a leg in a prior encounter with Moby-Dick, has to hobble on a wooden prosthesis. And Greenhorn 鈥� finally named Ishmael 鈥� ends the opera grabbing onto a whale hook from a passing ship that lifts him to safety.
鈥淚 joke with them that everything opera singers count on in life 鈥� having both feet planted on the ground 鈥� I鈥檝e taken away from them,鈥� Foglia said.
___
This story was first published Feb. 26, 2025. It was updated on Feb. 28, 2025, to correct the name of Northern Kentucky University.
Mike Silverman, The Associated Press
