Again we have the themes of working the land, the existential value of the land, and of California as promised land, bound up with the primal passions and psychological complexities of the incestuous triangle leading to tragedy—it’s not hard to understand how all this can be seen as operatically promising. Opera lovers will recognize the elements of infanticide and the manning up of the guilty male partner from the several Medea settings in the first instance and Norma in the second, wherein they certainly pay off. But O’Neill was not a librettist, or even what we might call a libretto-amenable playwright. His prose, set down with his customary meticulous literalness, is a past-ripe historical/regional idiom, requiring some modification even for skilled contemporary speaking actors, and his character development relies on performers capable of outer actions of the most extreme varieties, nonetheless informed by layers of subtext, which is where music might play the eloquent, revelatory role. I do not know if Masteroff was restricted by the author’s estate in dealing with the text (this often happens), but his treatment of it consisted almost entirely in making substantial cuts. That is necessary, certainly, for musical setting, unless one can locate some Pelléas-equivalent idiom for the tale. But it is not at all helpful in terms of suggesting musical structures and rhythms. Further, it mandates that the sense of time needed for radical psychological swings, which in the play’s full text is already cramped but at least has the assistance of greater development and, in performance, of actorly timing, is now too abrupt. The swings topple atop one another, in some cases almost comically, especially as we near the dénouement.

So Thomas confronted the same problem faced by Gordon in The Grapes of Wrath, namely, finding a way to translate the historical/regional equivalent of kitchen-sink language, which suggests nothing more than a dogged recitativo parlando, into words asking not only to be sung, but to be lifted to a plane of impassionisation that can carry the intensity of the climactic moments. He coped with the task more successfully than does Gordon. The musical language he employs is more unified, his vocal writing more consistently reconciled to classical usages. ^(I) And he has a winning lyrical gift. The instrumental introductions to scenes catch the ear with bits of atmosphere, and I found myself thinking that a couple of them might have been profitably extended as in verismo practice (Cavalleria, Manon Lescaut, La Wally, et al.) by way of helping us with the passing-of-time illusion. There are passages (parts of the Act 2 Abbie/Eben duet and, especially, Abbie’s extended solo, directed alternately to her baby and to the absent Eben as she brings herself to the brink of the fatal act) wherein this gift finds its way into the vocal setting. There’s even an extended choral number at the opening of Act 3 (“with counterpoint,” the set’s libretto assures us) that is musically interesting and enjoyable on its own, even though its tone betrays a longing for the opera the composer wishes he were setting, rather than the one before him. Except for a few such episodes, Thomas’ word setting is defeated by the libretto’s prosody, which almost never hits the ear as any form of poetic scansion, but only as however many short, blunt syllables it takes to convey the given thought, concluded by either an unearned high note or an equally unearned, overextended, “I’m singing now” final syllable. The pattern is so predictable as to quickly leave the impression that the composer has given up on finding any structural, imaginative solutions for the “line readings,” and such musical interest as remains is, for long stretches, confined to the orchestra.