Creators Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell won a Pulitzer Prize for their first opera, Silent Night. This was reviewed in SunNewsAustin in 2019 (see link below). They teamed up again to develop The Manchurian Candidate, which was first performed by Austin Opera in 2016. Campbell (pictured below) was present for this revived production, staged on November 9 and 10, 2024.
Mark Diamond, who was last seen in Austin as the love-struck Anthony in Sweeney Todd, stars as the U.S. soldier and war hero, Sgt. Raymond Shaw. Unbeknownst to him, at the center of the web is his own mother Eleanor, performed by Metropolitan Opera leading lady Mary Dunleavy in her Austin Opera debut. Also caught in the intrigue is Shaw’s former girlfriend Jocelyn, sung by 2024 GRAMMY nominee soprano Rachel Blaustein in her Austin Opera debut, and her father Senator Johnny Iselin, sung by commanding bass-baritone Kyle Albertson. GRAMMY award-winning tenor Frederick Ballentine makes his company debut as Captain Ben Marco, Shaw’s war buddy.
Returning cast members from the 2016 Austin premiere are Austin favorites Donnie Ray Albert as Andrew Hanley/Secretary of Defense, Liz Cass as Mrs. Lowe/Dr. Yen Lo, and Jamie Van Eyck as Rosie Cheyney.
Instead of the usual opera review, I submit here an interview. I was fortunate enough to chat with someone, in his 30s, who was attending an opera for the first time. His comments are particularly insightful, both looking to America’s past in the 1940s during the ‘Red Scare,’ and to America’s clouded future.
“America has a lot of the same culture of putting a ‘plant’ in, trying to basically use that plant for whatever agenda they have. So watching it kind of reminded me of that TV show The Americans [which ran from 2013-2018]. It’s about this Russian couple who infiltrate Washington, D.C. They live in D.C. and they are KGB or KBG spies. And basically, their cover is that they’re both travel agents, they have children.
“Also, the movie that came to mind was the movie that Angelina Jolie was in called Salt. She didn’t even know – or they had trained her in such a way to where she forgot who she was – until she was interrogating a normal Russian spy and whatever trigger words he said to her, triggered her to begin to remember. And basically, she went on a rampage trying to do everything she needed to do, but at the same time, she ends up switching sides and saving the US president.” It was one of several films inspired by the original 1959 novel by Richard Condon. “Looking back I’m like, goodness! It was an intense opera but it made a lot of sense to me and it basically gave me a little bit more insight as to what was going on in the world at the time. To be completely honest, it’s like my grandmother said many years ago that she hoped she was gone by the time it happened again, but when she was a little girl growing up in Mississippi, you know, it was bad enough as it was segregated in the 40s.
“They’re dealing with racial issues, but then she said the police officers that weren’t racist were constantly in the area of Mississippi. She was always telling me to look out for suspicious people because she’s growing up during the time period where they felt like Russian spies were infiltrating small towns across the US.” Both Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia were to be feared then. “ She said, ‘I know all the stuff that Hitler did, it’s going to go full circle.’ And she said, ‘Things like that recycle.’
I said, “What do you mean?”
“She said, ‘There’s going to be a day where there’s going to be a dictator to come in place. The same things that have happened before are going to happen all over again.’ True to nature, she was right. Life just recycles. In Germany, it happened with Hitler during that time period. We have Donald Trump and it’s happening here in the US.
“The opera was very educational. It brought a lot of things to light for me. And it was enjoyable, made for a very profound experience, and it made really made you think. It made you understand not to take for granted the liberties that you have. And unfortunately, after January 20th, it’s going to be very short-lived.
“The writing of it really made me appreciate the opportunities I have had and to basically be on-guard moving forward – move swiftly and when things really start to look bad, already have a fail-safe in place for me to exit stage right.”
It can be said of few operas that they are ‘timely,’ but certainly at this time and place, The Manchurian Candidate with its final rally at Madison Square Gardens hit all the panic buttons. The only difference is, the evil ones are defeated in the opera; in real life, they won. Plan your fail-safe place soon!
Image below by C. Cunningham: The Librettist, Mark Campbell, at Austin Opera on Nov. 10, 2024; Lead image courtesy of Austin Opera, one of the country’s finest opera companies!
- Austin Opera’s 2016 production was nominated for seven Austin Critics’ Table Awards, winning four including Best Opera Production.
- Richard Condon’s novel has twice been adapted into a feature film with the same title: the first was released in 1962 starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury, and the second in 2004 starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, and Meryl Streep.
For a review of the opera Silent Night, visit this link:
For upcoming productions, including Verdi’s Requiem on Feb. 1 and 2, 2025, visit the website www.austinopera.org