LA Opera's "Crossing"

"Crossing" at the Wallis Annenberg, Beverly Hills

When Walt Whitman wrote in his diary as a volunteer nurse during the civil war he questioned if his accounts would be forgotten. LA Opera Off Grand presents "Crossing."

His expressions were intimate, interpersonal connections with the soldiers in the hospital whom he tended to with love and compassion. When asked “What he was doing here? Might he not have a wife and family of his own?” He answered, "I love all of humanity, the whole world is my family." Whitman, the American poet and journalist, was a spiritual and complex man who was anguished by the evils of war. Yet he spent years with the men he forged deep connections with even through the controversy of his healing acts of love. He considered himself a healer --- laying his hands across the wounded and sick. And he helped numerous patients by writing hundreds of letters for them to send back home to their loved ones. Matthew Aucoin, the composer, librettist and conductor of this operatic fantasia, describes the diaries as messy, as messy as the Civil War. John Wormley, a young soldier whom Whitman was especially close with, is discovered to be a Confederate soldier in disguise. Although Whitman can disgrace him, he chooses to understand and console him by saying, "The soul does not know North or South." Stunningly, a climatic eruption turns the act of caring into cries and accusations of perversion by the young wounded solider.

Perhaps the operatic nature of Whitman who sees the beauty in everything--- the good as well as the suffering and bloodshed---is what inspired Matthew Aucoin to compose this highly emotional and stirring piece. His libretto uses lines from Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and opens with "What is it, then, between us?" Walt Whitman's beliefs, which encompass the meaning of God beyond the limitations of man's elementary understanding, is an elucidation of humanity and is only beginning to be accepted nearly one hundred and sixty years later.

Witnessing a chapter of his life that might have been the most private and complicated in an intimate setting such as the Bram Goldsmith Theater at the Wallis Annenberg is appropriate and healing. I imagined Whitman's loving hand touching every performer on stage whispering, "I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence." And he would be sending thoughts of gratitude to Aucoin for not forgetting.

Artists
Bariton Rod Gilfry, who created the role in the world premiere, plays Whitman with a presence that shines Brenton Ryan (John Wormley), Davone Tines (Freddie Stowers). Liv Redpath (Messenger)
A production of LA Opera Off Grand at the Wallis Annenberg. May 26/27, 2018.
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