MEDIATHEK

Imagine: Two brothers climb up to a barn loft. The older is a “regular” boy. The younger, nicknamed Doodle, is physically disabled, a “cripplerunt” as his brother sneeringly calls him. The older brother reveals a tiny coffin and cruelly explains, “After you were born, Daddy built it for you.” Then he threatens to leave Doodle unless he touches the coffin. “Don't leave me!” Doodle cries. Shaking with terror, he touches the wood. As he does, an owl flies screeching out from behind the coffin, terrifying Doodle. His brother laughs, “Sissy, sissy!” This scene from our mixed-media opera with puppets explores what it means to be whole and healthy, and how gendered scripts of family life become problematized upon contact with nature.

Investigation of the “otherness” of the disabled is expressed in the form of a puppet that portrays Doodle. This is a strong visual metaphor—the character can't walk so, like a puppet, he must rely on others to mobilize him. He is literally created of a different substance (wood and wire instead of flesh and bone). Doodle is counterbalanced with another puppet, the scarlet ibis, an exotic harbinger of distant locales and dying beauty.

The music in The Scarlet Ibis is lushly melodic. The older brother is sung by a mezzosoprano, in line with the longstanding tradition of having a mezzo in a “pants role.” However, the part of the disabled younger brother is sung by a countertenor. By placing a woman in an aggressive, normative male role and a man in a boyish soprano register, traditional gender roles are blurred and challenged. This is especially relevant to the story’s exploration of boyhood and nature. The countertenor also manipulates the puppet, adding to the fragile strangeness of the character.

Opera remains a radical art form that has pushed artists to reach for emotional and narrative extremes. Death and disease have been frequent operatic topics, and we embrace that tradition even as we seek to complicate it with notions of childhood cruelty and the nature of sibling rivalry. The Scarlet Ibis is visceral, weird, funny and emotionally involving.

The Scarlet Ibis is not just for new opera aficionados. Although certainly not exclusively for younger listeners, it has resonance for teens, an underserved audience, who, like the main characters, are going through physical and emotional changes in a world that can seem unkind and dangerous. With The Scarlet Ibis, we aimed to create a 21stcentury opera for a 21st-century audience.