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Elizabeth Crow | Phoenix Staff

BY MAKI SOMOSOT

In print | Published February 5, 2009

“A grit in the eye, a crack in the heart,” sing the iconic detective Sherlock Holmes and Miss Irene Adler, the woman who famously beats Holmes in a battle of wits, as they lay bare their unresolved feelings to each other onstage. With music written by associate professor of music and composer Thomas Whitman ’82 and a libretto by professor of English literature and poet Nathalie Anderson, “A Scandal in Bohemia” transforms Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short detective story into a musical opera that will be performed Sunday, Feb. 8 in Lang Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m.

The operatic format provides a unique interpretation of Conan Doyle’s classic short story in a hybrid performance that should be appealing to both literature and music lovers alike.

“The passion portrayed in opera and the intense mysteries in Sherlock Holmes’ stories complement each other rather nicely,” Swarthmore chorus member Holly Kinnamont ’12 said. “I can totally picture Sherlock Holmes belting it out in a rich baritone.”

“Scandal” promises something more than your average play with a musical twist. The opera follows the plot of the short story in which the King of Bohemia (played by Julian Rodescu) hires the services of Sherlock Holmes (played by Markus Beam) to retrieve certain documents that may compromise his upcoming marriage. These documents, coincidentally, are in the possession of an opera singer named Irene Adler (played by Laura Heimes), with whom the King previously had an affair.

While the investigation and detective work unfolds, Holmes realizes that the King’s version of the story clashes with Holmes’s personal observations that Adler is more than what she seems on the surface. While Whitman and Anderson’s opera stays faithful to the original plot conformation, “Scandal” also brings to light the more humanist elements of Conan Doyle’s tale.

“It’s a love story,” Whitman said of his interpretation and personal vision. “The music makes it possible for someone like Sherlock Holmes to fall in love. It’s probably why it even exists in the first place.”

Because of the nature of the opera, a much greater emphasis will be placed on musical accompaniment and its contributions to the “emotional architecture” and “dramatic pitch” of the story.
“There are also fewer words needed because the music is supplying the emotions subliminally,” Anderson added. “So the original language of Conan Doyle has to be pared back.”

Ideally, the job of the music as both emotional filler and catalyst for Sherlock Holmes to find love would be the defining characteristic of this opera.

“This is what makes opera different from other mediums,” Whitman said. “The music dictates what happens next on the stage,” Anderson added.

The continuity supplied by the music means that the emotions contained within each scenario last for a longer stretch of time. Whitman, a former musical theatre aficionado who has since caught the “opera bug,” said, “Opera suspends disbelief and makes you forget the rational part of your brain.”
Anderson also noted that there is a special relationship between text and score in opera, creating a “texture and trajectory where music and spoken word can work together.”

In Anderson and Whitman’s operatic rendition of “Scandal,” there is an overhanging possibility that Holmes could genuinely fall in love with Adler once he discovers that she is his intellectual match. The opera is as much a romance as it is a detective mystery.

But it is also about the unconventional triumph of a female lead in an opera, which typically portrays women as passive creatures who die at the end of each performance.

“I had to invent a lot of dialogue for Irene Adler’s character, who doesn’t get to say very much in the actual story,” Anderson said.

Anderson’s additions appropriately reinforce Adler’s persona as a strong, independent woman who Holmes grudgingly learns to view as his intellectual equal. This unusual portrayal of a female lead—as well as Heimes’ clear soprano voice—is further highlighted by the presence of the exclusively male chorus, all comprised of Swarthmore students. There are no other female singers present.
“For most of the opera, the chorus is just reflecting the inner thoughts and feelings of Sherlock Holmes,” said chorus member Min Sern Teh ’12. “In many ways, the chorus is similar to the one in Oedipus, serving as a commentary to the events that are taking place.”

Anderson and Whitman have worked as a team on three collaborations prior to “Scandal,” namely “The Black Swan” (1998), “Sukey in the Dark” (2001) and “Babylon,” for chorus and chamber orchestra. With regards to the difficulty of creating a libretto from scratch, Anderson maintained that it was largely a matter of “being attuned to words and the opportunities that they presented.” Whitman, who has been working on the opera for five years, said that the project was the “hardest on his family,” but that it was somewhat easy to write because of the singers, whom he had personally known and worked with for some time.

“A Scandal in Bohemia” will premiere at 8 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 6 at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia before coming to Swarthmore’s Lang Concert Hall on Sunday, Feb. 8.

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