Ironically, perhaps, the score's strongest episodes are those that stand deliberately apart from the action. The harmonic language is predominantly gray, except for those moments when the score bursts into a sentimental wash of pure minor chords. The vocal lines are often shaggy and aimless, doggedly following the spoken rhythms of McClatchy's dialogue without adding anything of their own. Yet amid all of this activity, Picker's score - which by rights should be the primary vehicle of the drama - languishes on the sidelines, rarely managing to create a musical sense of either the characters or their fates. Robinson dexterously moves the focus of the action around so that the attention is always just where it's needed. ![]() ![]() George and their daughter Selena, to the pitiless fluorescence of the precinct station where she winds up being investigated in connection with the death of Vera Donovan, the wealthy widow she's worked for all her adult life. These range from the shabby bungalow where Dolores endures life with abusive husband Joe St. Allen Moyer's multilevel set, in combination with canny video projections by Greg Emetaz and virtuosic lighting by Christopher Akerlind, moves fluidly through a variety of impeccably detailed settings. The drama unfolds in a series of tersely concentrated scenes that skip about in time, just as the novel does, without blunting the general sense of forward momentum.Īnd the San Francisco Opera production, directed by James Robinson, is a haunting near-miracle of stagecraft. McClatchy retains that sleekness (fans of Taylor Hackford's terrific but very different 1995 film version, starring Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh, will find almost none of its additions here). In adapting King's novel for the stage, librettist J.D. Stephen King's sleek and irresistible 1992 thriller, about a beleaguered working-class woman with the strength to get up and do what needs to be done, offers both psychological acuity and a shapely, uncluttered plot. In so many ways, "Dolores Claiborne" would seem to be exactly what the operatic stage is crying for.
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