At the Dallas Opera, Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer’s adaptation of the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby movingly depicts the writer’s experience of being left speechless and almost entirely immobile by a stroke.
By
Heidi Waleson
Nov. 6, 2023 at 5:33 pm ET
‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ at the Dallas Opera
PHOTO: KYLE FLUBACKER
Dallas
‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer, which had its world premiere at the Dallas Opera on Friday, would seem to have the most improbable operatic subject imaginable. It is based on the bestselling 1997 memoir by the French writer Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, at age 43, had a massive stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome—speechless and almost totally immobile, but with his mind intact. (In 2007, Julian Schnabel adapted the memoir into a film.)
But one of opera’s superpowers is its ability to speak inner thoughts aloud, and “Diving Bell” fully embraces and explores that potential. The operatic Bauby (who was known as Jean-Do), sung by the indomitable baritone Lucas Meachem, stands, walks, and voices his thoughts for the audience, although all but one of the other characters on the stage see him only as a still, silent figure in a bed or a wheelchair. The intimacy of that relationship allows the audience to join him on his journey from imprisonment (the diving bell) to finding freedom in his imagination (the butterfly), and the discovery of what truly mattered in his life.
Mr. Scheer’s tight libretto and Mr. Talbot’s targeted, economical score (the opera runs under two hours including one intermission) waste no time on self-indulgence. Mr. Scheer cleverly underlines the imprisonment and freedom themes by introducing elements from Jean-Do’s favorite novel, “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas. One is Abbé Faria, the priest who was trying to dig his way out of his dungeon in the Château d’If but tunneled into the next cell instead; he becomes Jean-Do’s guide, as he was for the protagonist Edmond Dantès in the novel, and is the only person who can hear Jean-Do.
Lucas Meachem and Sasha Cooke
PHOTO: KYLE FLUBACKER
The nonimaginary characters trying to communicate with Jean-Do are Sylvie, the mother of his two children, whom he left for another woman, and his infirm father, both links to the brilliant and flawed man he was. He can blink one eyelid, and Sandrine, a speech therapist, teaches him to use that ability with an alphabet sequence to spell out words; Claude, his amanuensis, takes the dictation of his book. Composer and librettist carefully balance their scenes with Jean-Do’s soliloquies, moving from his terror, isolation and frustration to the climax of Act 1, when he finally spells out “merci” (“thank you”), a moment that recalls Helen Keller’s breakthrough in “The Miracle Worker,” but not in a bad way. The blinks are heard in the orchestra and seen as flashes of light, reminding us that this is the only way those other characters can understand him. In Act 2, as his book is written and his communication with the rest of the world restarts, others sometimes can speak for him. For example, as a doctor sews his right eye closed to prevent infection, the three women’s voices of Sylvie, Sandrine and Claude twine together, amplifying Jean-Do’s voice by reading his words aloud.
Mr. Talbot’s score calls for a lot of percussion, yet it is unusually lyrical: The vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel and celesta plus harp and pianos help to create the real atmosphere of the seaside hospital as well as the watery world of Jean-Do’s isolation and his struggles to come to terms with his situation and imagine himself out of it. Some scenes lighten the mood by leaning into jazz: There’s a syncopated rhythm as he remembers whipping up boeuf bourguignon for a dinner party with Sylvie; then in Act 2, to the beat of a drum kit and a plucked double bass, he imagines selecting photographs of himself in heroic situations for Elle magazine, where he was editor-in-chief. The most poignant scene is the second to last, “Au revoir,” as Jean-Do longs to have a real, spontaneous conversation once again; you feel the sadness of this vibrant, intelligent man who is now so painfully limited in his interactions with other humans.
Mr. Meachem and Richard Croft
PHOTO: KYLE FLUBACKER
Mr. Meachem’s vocal and theatrical expressiveness were such that by the end of the evening, we knew a great deal about Jean-Do. The singers were amplified, which gave the voices an odd immediacy in the 2,200-seat Winspear Opera House and exacerbated the slightly harsh edge of Sasha Cooke’s mezzo; otherwise, her Sylvie was affecting, as were sopranos Andriana Chuchman and Deanna Breiwick as, respectively, Sandrine and Claude. Ms. Chuchman also had a scene as another “Monte Cristo” character, Mercédès. Tenor Richard Croftbrought urgency to Faria; bass Kevin Burdette gave Papinou (Jean-Do’s father) a distinctive frailty; tenor Andrew Bidlack was properly pompous as the Doctor. Ava Jafari and Austin Howarth were capable in the spoken roles of Jean-Do’s children. Emmanuel Villaume was the authoritative conductor.
Director Leonard Foglia’s production toggled between Jean-Do’s inner and outer worlds. The action played out, for the most part, on a platform with a slightly raked area at the back. Above it and at its sides, a tilted ceiling and two butterfly-shaped wings made of a stippled reflective material mirrored the images projected on the rake in distorted form—at times so distorted that it was not always clear what they represented. (Elaine J. McCarthy designed the set and the projections.) Russell Champa’s lighting also delineated the borders between the imagined and real, as did David Woolard’s costumes—modern ones for the present, and 19th-century ones for the Dumas characters.
Bauby died two days after his book was published and the opera’s final scene includes his passing. Yet this conclusion is neither a downer nor a conventional “his work lives on” apotheosis, but rather the culmination of Jean-Do’s difficult journey toward acceptance and the joy in what he’s had. The other characters sing lines from his book: “A butterfly’s wings, beat by beat by beat, counting all the things you’ve ever loved, all the things you’ve ever imagined; and then beat by beat by beat, counting the seconds until it’s time to let go.” It reminded me of Mr. Talbot and Mr. Scheer’s previous collaboration, “Everest” (2015), which was also commissioned by the Dallas Opera. It, too, used music to express the complexities and joys of human resilience under the most terrible circumstances imaginable.
Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).
Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
AndyManshel.nyc 