New York Times Review #1

Different Players, but the Same Election Year Drama
‘Mrs. President’ Opera Has Preview at Symphony Space

Richard Termine for The New York Times
Mrs. President The soprano Valerie Bernhardt, left, at Symphony Space during a preview for this opera, written by Victoria Bond.
By ALLAN KOZINN
Published: July 10, 2012
Original article

Obscure historical characters often yield good opera subjects, and in that regard the composer and conductor Victoria Bond has struck gold in the story of Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for the American presidency, in 1872. Her opera about Woodhull, “Mrs. President,” in the works for more than a decade, will have its first performance with full orchestra and chorus (but in a concert reading) in October at the Anchorage Opera. Ms. Bond presented a preview, with piano accompaniment and without dramatically important choral passages, at Symphony Space on Monday evening.

Woodhull, born Victoria Claflin in Homer, Ohio, in 1838, grew up telling fortunes at carnivals, married when she was 14 or 15 (sources vary), hawked patent medicines, divorced and remarried, moved to New York and was reportedly the first woman to own a stock brokerage and run a newspaper. She advocated free love, women’s voting rights and various progressive economic programs; she also used her newspaper to expose hypocrisy and settle scores with her enemies.

Woodhull’s presidential candidacy amounted to little: at 34, she was a year too young to appear on the ballot, and women, who made up an important part of her constituency, were legally barred from voting. In any case, on Election Day, Woodhull was in prison, charged with sending obscene materials — her newspaper, packed with details of the preacher Henry Ward Beecher’s infidelities — in the mail. The incumbent, Ulysses S. Grant, won.

Ms. Bond and her librettist, Hilary Bell, have mined this story without letting historical detail overwhelm its purely operatic potential. Yes, this is a piece about a headstrong young woman and her ideas, but it is more vividly about passion, betrayal and backstairs intrigue. To that end, Ms. Bond and Ms. Bell offer some imaginative speculation. A confrontation between Woodhull and Beecher, for example, ends in an invented tryst. As Ms. Bond noted in a recent interview, “it’s an opera, it’s not a biopic.”

More to the point, Ms. Bond has given each character a distinct musical stamp. Woodhull’s arias are passionate, emotional, often agitated, occasionally seductive: everything you would expect from an opera heroine, and all conveyed powerfully in the soprano Valerie Bernhardt’s focused, spirited performance.

Ms. Bond has said that her model for Woodhull was Carmen. You can see that and wish that she had thought to give Woodhull the equivalent of Carmen’s “Habanera.” But she did provide a Micaëla of sorts in Woodhull’s acolyte, Isabella Beecher, whose innocent intensity was captured sweetly by the soprano Katrina Thurman.

Ms. Bond has made Henry Ward Beecher, Woodhull’s nemesis and Isabella’s half brother, interestingly complex. A fiery orator in life, he is presented here as wily but conflicted, with heroic qualities to offset his flaws. Scott Ramsay, the tenor, began his portrayal of Beecher tepidly, but warmed to the role.

Woodhull’s long-suffering second husband, Col. James Blood, has the music of an almost folksy character. The bass-baritone Robert Osborne brought an appealingly warm tone to his performance, although at times you could sail a battleship through the waves of his vibrato.

Joy Hermalyn, Kirk Dougherty and Rebecca Cloudy contributed ably in smaller roles, and Richard Gordon provided a solid accompaniment that suggested a colorful score, with Ms. Bond conducting. Naomi Lewin, an announcer from WQXR, provided a detailed narration that described the missing choruses and the staging, down to the lighting details.