Two performers, Christopher Maltman (Mark) and Denyce Graves (Marnie’s Mother), escaped the pervasive anonymity, and this due solely to their being able to lay claim to voices of sufficient calibre and verbal clarity. Graves’ (actual) mezzo is now rather husky and unsteady on sustained tones. But it has also settled a little deeper, and she has a strong sense of recitational expression. In her single scene, late in Act 1, I felt, with gratitude, some of what I’ve always taken for the basic operatic engagement. Maltman’s own voice (a pleasing lyric baritone of typically English hue) is also beginning to show an occasional wavery symptom at the ends of long phrases, but has become a larger, darker-textured, and altogether more interesting instrument over the years since his local debut as Silvio. He projected the text vividly and, when permitted by the writing, showed some welcome signs of passion.

Two other parts of some prominence—Mark’s mother and a minor antagonist named Strutt—were weakly cast. And a potentially more important one, Mark’s Galitzky-like brother Terry (womanizer, scheming usurper, who makes a rough pass at Marnie) was assigned to a male falsettist, in this case Iestyn Davies. The patent daffiness of this inspiration was nicely caught by a denizen of the Family Circle boxes along Score Desk Row who, as the house emptied, warbled a few garbled falsetto notes, no weaker or less comprehensible than those coming from the stage, which elicited a few smiles, a “tsk-tsk” or two, and a couple of affirmative head-nods from those who’d been polite enough to stay and clap. I was reminded of those cherishable moments at the ballgame when some long-retired soul has been nominated to throw out the first pitch over the fifty-some feet from in front of the mound to home plate, and completes the heave on the fly. “Sign him up!” comes the call from the upper deck.

Looking back over what I’ve written, a thought occurs: possibly we aren’t meant to root for Marnie or Mark, to feel any empathy for them. Maybe we’re meant only to inspect them and take cautionary note. But then, why have an opera? It’s a lot of trouble to go to.

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There are times when my professional curiosity leads me into experiences so akin to a bad dream, yet inescapably parts of my waking world, that I find my attention being drawn away from the event, and toward contemplation of the bandwidth of human creativity and receptivity. I mutter to myself, “The wavelength these folks are on—those who are receiving it  in all solemnity no less than those who have created it and are now performing it—is so far removed from my own that it may as well be beaming in some remote part of the cosmos, or even in an alternate universe.” Such is the case with the New York premiere of Only the Sound Remains at the Rose Theater on November 17. So although I’ll do my best to give an accounting of the proceedings, perhaps it’s best to consider the following as more of a response than a review.