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September 13, 2007
Margaret Garner
Photo Credit: New York Times
Last night, we attended the opening night of the New York City Opera's new season, which started with a new production Margaret Garner. This is one powerful story. The libretto was written by Toni Morrison, based on her 1987 book "Beloved".
Margaret Garner was a slave in Kentucky in the mid-1800s. The plantation owner sends her husband away, and moves her into his home to work. He accosts her.
Her husband escapes his new "employer" and returns to move Margaret and their two children to a safer place in free Ohio. The plantation owner discovers their whereabouts and arrives to take them back, then hangs her husband.
Rather than have her children return to a life of slavery, she kills them.
She is tried for stealing the plantation owner's property - her children. The trial hangs on the question of whether she should be tried for theft, or murder. She is sentenced to hang, nonetheless. At the urging of his daughter, the plantation owner gains clemency from the court to have Margaret released to his custody. She kicks the trap on the gallows open and hangs herself.
It's a happy story.
It wouldn't be opera if it was a happy story.
By far the very best that I have seen New York City Opera do yet. If you can see it, you should.
Posted by dave at September 13, 2007 06:58 PM