THE WORKS OF WILLIAM MAYER

Reviews of A Death in the Family

Opera News
by Robert Jacobson

That American composers are reaching back into the trunk of “the American experience” for opera subject matter may mean a coming of age for a native art form, and the most recent entry, William Mayer’s three-act A Death in the Family, should immediately become a candidate for regular airings around the country, so beautiful and meaningful is it, not only in its James Agee story but in the setting the composer-librettist has provided for it. As produced by the Minnesota Opera ... it held hypnotic sway on the first-night audience, because within its emotional-psychological fabric are people and situations with which an American public can identify.

Mayer has created a kind of cinematic dream play about young, somewhat alienated Rufus growing up in Knoxville, Tennessee. The mature Rufus ponders his past and types his story at one side of the stage, while his six-year-old counterpart becomes the focus of the action in a family that weds two classes—those of the prudish city mother and free-spirited country father, the former religious, the latter atheistic. Beyond that lies the racial milieu of a Southern city, c. 1915, with its attitude toward blacks. All this provides fascinating textures about human beings in a certain time and place.

Agee, along with others, left us with an idealized sense of America’s past, and with it comes a native poetic essence. Mayer’s opera is rich in lyric atmosphere in both text and score, capturing that sense of indefinable longing for an age of innocence before modern life cast its blight. So many thoughts and ideas are brought into play: that sense of personal loneliness in the universe amid family “togetherness,” the transiency of life as one by one we pass through this world, the eternal agonies of growing up, “loving relationships of husband and wife, father and son.”

Mayer begins with an authentic folk tune Agee heard in his childhood, “Every time the sun goes down,” and from there develops a skein of past, present and future—three generations of family, its musical elements disparate but all to a purpose, ranging from folk and pop music through electronics (a nightmare) to an operetta spoof.

Since the composer possesses a rich skill at word setting, a high percentage of the text proved understandable, due in part to his sensitive orchestration as well. He has a compelling, economical vocal-instrumental style that immediately creates a mood, an atmosphere for the moment, as he provides a finely etched sequence of set pieces and sung recitative melding into a consistent flow. Mary’s cogent Act I aria about loneliness and the gulf between her and her husband, the poignant ensemble during the family visit to 104-year-old Great Granmaw, the richly romantic duet at the end of Act II as Mary and Jay part, the powerful sextet “Who shall tell the sorrow,” with its mounting intensity of private manifestations of grief, and other passages emerge from the flow, right up to the exquisite image of “a perfectly magnificent butterfly” at the burial. Mayer’s tonal, melodic style, in the Barber-Copland mold, brings together gentle expression with power and angularity for a full palette of expression, the orchestra; picturesque and descriptive as it adds its own emotional underpinning and embellishment ...

American Record Guide
Review of Manhattan School of Music Recording of William Mayer’s A Death in the Family.

William Mayer’s opera is based on one of the great classics of American literature, James Agee’s novel A Death in the Family. In 1961 Agee’s novel had been adapted for the stage by Tad Mosel as All the Way Home, and that play is the basis for the opera. Mayer has also included some appropriate passages from Agee’s nonfiction Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ...

Shirley Fleming reviewed the Manhattan production and concisely describes the work: “James Agee’s autobiographical novel is a wonderfully delicate evocation of childhood, family unity, religious conflict, and grief, set in the Knoxville of 1915. Mayer, in a deft compression of the book, touches on all these facets, in a work that is primarily gentle and lyrical but also rises to dramatic tension at the story’s emotional peaks.” To Ms Fleming’s comments let me add that this is one of the best, most poetical opera librettos ever, neatly characterizing the individual characters and placing the emotional story not just in its own proper time frame, but in the larger context of eternity and the situations of all Mankind. The music is almost completely tonal ... Like Agee, Mayer has struck a fine balance between the ordinary and the rare, between colloquial prose and high poetry, between fantasy and reality, between humor and tragedy, between folk material and “classical” music. This is music often on the edge of tears that resolves itself into a quiet resignation filtered through hope for the future.

When I first heard this recording I found it difficult to take notes or even to listen to the work objectively. Although knowing the novel and the play and knowing what to expect dramatically, I was surprised to find my eyes welling up with tears at the ineffable beauty of the wedding of text and music. Later, more rational hearings confirmed my initial favorable impressions.

The Manhattan performance does fine justice by the work. Diction is extraordinarily clear, helped by the sensible text setting by Mayer ...

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Notes for A Death in the Family

 Listen to excerpts:
(from the “Voices from Lost Realms” CD)

 A Death in the Family: Butterfly Aria (Judith Cristin, soprano; Gregory Mercer, tenor; Steven Mayer, piano) (3:34)
 A Death in the Family: How Far We All Come Away from Ourselves (James McKeel, baritone) (4:07)

Published by WillMayer Music.
Contact Music [at] WilliamMayer-Composer [dot] com for more information.

A Death in the Family
   Albany Records (2000)

Order online from Albany Records or from Amazon, ArkivMusic, etc.

Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater, David Gilbert, conductor.

“... rich, warm and picturesque.”
   — Allan Kozinn, The New York Times

“William Mayer’s A Death in the Family was a success on all counts. Its poignant drama and accessible music made it a favorite with audiences: I repeatedly heard comments like ‘I’ve finally heard a new American opera I can enjoy rather than only admire.’”
   — Edward Corn, General Director,
        Minnesota Opera

About the sextet “Who shall tell the Sorrow of being on this earth?”:

“... absolutely ravishing music, one of those moments in theater which make up for a lifetime’s worth of less enchanting ones.”
   — Robert Boyd, Station KWMU,
        St. Louis

“... faithfully projects the essence of Agee’s masterpiece.”
   — James Wierzbicki, St. Louis
        Post-Dispatch

“We [Rutgers University] had the good fortune to perform excerpts from William Mayer’s A Death in the Family. The vocal writing is wonderful and the music is, quite frankly, thrilling. Our most sophisticated doctoral students as well as our undergrads were delighted to work on the piece. We were all touched by its beauty and emotional power.”
   — Valorie Goodall, Director,
        Rutgers Opera Company

“... a deeply moving and uniquely American work.”
   — Henry Orland, St. Louis
        Globe Democrat