In performance, Blanchard’s settings also come into an unproductive relationship with the voices cast in the principal roles. Blue and Moore are sopranos. Both voices are of good quality, and of sufficient amplitude from the midrange up. But, like most of their contemporary type, they have not the sonority at the bottom to consistently project the word-oriented writing in the lower range. In fact, in that tessitura they haven’t as strong a presence as those of leading-lady theatre actresses of yore (e.g., Judith Anderson, Siobhan McKenna, Katherine Cornell), so even the spoken lines are cheated—some of them register clearly enough as to meaning, but they don’t “land.” Liverman has a compact high baritone, well-balanced and sturdy enough to stay the course with a long, often awkwardly written role. But it isn’t at all a large voice, again with little presence at the low end, and its color span is very narrow. I suspect the voice is capable of some winning lyricism, but when the opportunity came for a sort of Billy-in-the-Darbies monologue, it was off-sourced to Loneliness. ^(I) The cumulative effect of these conformations is that in an opera founded on word comprehension, and with principal singers doing their best to fulfill the “diction” mandate, one can’t follow the plot in any moment-to-moment sense. (And the program synopsis, borrowed from the St. Louis materials, was the least helpful I have ever read.) In none of the many English-language operas I have encountered on first hearing in our auditoriums, including many far less speech-centered than this one, have I encountered equal difficulty with respect to basic comprehensibility. That includes the current Porgy and Bess—but there, familiarity renders the comparison moot. And why, you may ask, did I not consult the surtitles? I never do that, except from time to time to check up on the omissions and distortions of translations. And in an opera written in my own language, I shouldn’t need to. I watch the stage, where the action is, and listen as closely as I can—mostly in vain, on this occasion. Fire has a very large supporting cast, among whom the only real standout was Ryan Speedo Green, as Uncle Paul. He sang with good, strong tone and verbal clarity, and sketched a character. The voices of Packer (Spinner) and Chris Kelley (Chester) projected well and with qualities appropriate to their parts, which was also true of their acting. A boy soprano, Walter Russell III, handled his assignment as the young Charles very capably. This show will play better on HD TV than it does in the house.