Marble City Opera: The Copper Queen
Music by Clint Borzoni; libretto by John de los Santos
Flying Anvil Theatre, 1300 Rocky Hill Road
Thursday – Saturday, June 2-4, 2022, 7:30 PM
Tickets and Information
Almost exactly nine years ago, Marble City Opera began its performance life with a chamber opera set in the old west, The Face on the Barroom Floor. That work, brimming with mystery and irony, had two parallel stories, separated in time: a 19th Century mining camp saloon and that same town today, a touristy attraction with its own summer opera company. Although it is a total coincidence, MCO returns to the Old West next weekend with another mystery/ghost story that explores parallel tracks in time, The Copper Queen. These performances will be the work’s “stage” premiere—a bit of explanation follows.
The Copper Queen—music by Clint Borzoni and libretto by John de los Santos— was commissioned by Arizona Opera, the results of a competition the company offered for the creation of Arizona-themed operas. Originally scheduled for a world premiere in the Fall of 2020, the production was halted that infamous spring by the Covid-19 pandemic precautions. Turning lemons into lemonade, Arizona Opera, unable to stage a traditional live performance, decided to use personnel and materials that had already been assembled and shoot the opera performance as a film, their first such venture in that medium. The film, directed by Crystal Manich, was released for viewing last fall.
In an interesting twist, librettist de los Santos will be serving as stage director for this MCO production of The Copper Queen, a move that is affording the cast a special insight into the characters and the opera.
The setting is The Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, AZ, a town in southeastern Arizona with a copper mining past. Today, however, with the decline of the local mining industry, the town relies upon history tourism and quaintness for much of its financial base. What could be more historic, and eerily atmospheric, than a hotel that today advertises itself as “just as elegant and exquisite as the day it first opened in 1902…filled with grand pianos, Tiffany chandeliers…and ghosts of days gone by.”
The opera’s plot is a classically intriguing ghost story. Modern day writer Addison Moore checks into Room 315 of The Copper Queen Hotel, aware of the ghost story surrounding the room’s one-time inhabitant, Julia Lowell, a mining town “working girl”. Moore wishes to investigate the possibility, but perhaps there is more to her motivations. Does Lowell’s ghost really haunt Room 315 and if so, what’s the story of her demise?
In addition to de los Santos as stage director, the music director is Christy Lee, who will also be conducting the instrumental ensemble. Soprano and MCO executive director Kathryn Frady is singing the role of Julia Lowell; mezzo-soprano Sara Crigger will be heard in the role of Addison Moore. The cast also includes tenor David Silvano, bass-baritones Graham Anduri and Jacob Lay, and baritone Daniel Spiotta.
Frady indicated a couple of compelling reasons that opera fans will want to catch The Copper Queen.
“One of the overarching themes in the opera,” says Frady, “is the idea of female inheritance and what women pass down to each other from generation to generation. Another unique thing about this ‘new’ opera is that it has luscious melodies that the audience will leave humming. Clint describes his music as American Verismo and as someone who loves singing Puccini I am obsessed with singing this score. It is so well written for the voice and the stakes are high for the characters providing a wonderful amount of intense drama that everyone who loves opera will enjoy.”
