The Snowy Day is an opera by Joel Thompson, an Atlanta composer, with libretto based on a children's picture book published in 1962 and written by Ezra Jack Keats. The short opera (it is about one hour and nine minutes long) was commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera where it was first premiered in December 2021. The version of the show that I saw on February 15, 2025 has been re-orchestrated -- I'm not sure what this means. Our politics are so perverse in this historical moment that it's hard not to view this opera as a DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion) work, a post George Floyd celebration of "Black joy", and, therefore, somewhat suspect after three weeks of Donald Trump's presidency. A thing like this flies below the radar, I would guess, but if Trump's administration knew about this opera, I have no doubt that they would take measures to suppress it, or, at least, invent vicious lies about its content. (Critical racial theory? reverse bigotry?)
After a snowfall, a boy named Peter wakes up to a winter wonderland. After wolfing down a hasty breakfast, he gets dressed to play outside. (His preparations, somewhat bizarrely, include having his cheeks glazed with vaseline for warmth and to prevent chaffing in the wind.) Peter's formidable mother sings an aria about how she sees everything. Dressed in a red snowsuit with a peculiar and ridiculous red conical cap, Peter goes outside to play in the snow. A trio of hooligans appear after he has danced about in the snow for a few minutes. The hooligans taunt him and pitch snowballs at his face. A Puerto Rican girl named Amy rescues him from the bullies and they go sledding, riding down a long hill. From the top of the hill, they can see the whole city draped in snow -- the story seems to take place in New York City. The hooligans reappear but Amy embarrasses them and one of the boys becomes friend with Peter and the girl. (The leader of the bullies shouts: "The snow belongs to us!") Shoveling snow, Peter's father and Amy's father sing a duet together. Then, the children are called from play and go home. Peter molds a snowball that he thinks he can preserve in his coat. He wants the snowy day to last forever. At home, Peter's mother puts him in a bath. She and Peter sing some jazz-inflected syllables -- it's scat singing to a jazzy tune. Later, Peter feels in the pocket of his snowsuit for his snowball, but, of course, it is melted. That night, Peter has a nightmare in which he sees the bullies tormenting him in red, garish light. He feels that he is melting himself like his snowball. In the morning, more snow has fallen. Again, Peter goes out to play and the opera ends with him "whisper walking" (as he calls it) through the snow.
Peter's part is scored for a high soprano and so the role is played by a woman -- she's round and short and looks a little like the gymnast Simone Biles. Two of the bullies are white but the rest of the cast is Black or Hispanic (Puerto Rican). The composer, librettist, and most of the other creative personnel responsible for the opera are also Black. The set is utilitarian, a boxy interior representing Peter's bedroom decorated in bright primary colors. The outdoors, where most of the action occurs, are represented by props made from white paper-mache to simulate snow -- there's a bare tree, a snow man (used by the Spanish-speaking Amy to teach Peter the Spanish words for "nose", "eyes", "arms" and "hands -- there's as sort of jovial, friendly Sesame Street vibe to the show.) The music sounds like the score for a traditional Hollywood movie -- it's broadly illustrative, eloquent and tonal, but, mostly, not memorable or distinctive in any way. The jazzy scat singing is good and there's a duet with Amy that has traces of a Latin American dance-beat. Often, the music has a late-Romantic timbre with high soprano voices and seems to me to be a bit like Richard Strauss. There is a spooky group of snow drifts, humped up like sheeted ghosts, and this prop sometimes moves in an eerie way -- I don't think the effect is intentionally scary; in fact, it's supposed to be whimsical. The libretto consists of rhythmic verse with internal rhymes -- when Peter takes a fallen limb to the trunk of an old tree, he's said to be "Whack, Whack, Whacking the brittle bark tree." At the end of the show, little Peter wanders in the snow in front of a scrim and his shadow looks exactly like the peaked, ghostly figure of a Ku Klux Klansman -- I'm always amazed that the people who make operas generally miss implications obvious from their own imagery; it can't be the show's intent to show Pete's silhouette as the shadow of a KKK member. The opera is designed for children and it's only moderately interesting for adults -- the nightmare scene with the characters stomping around like zombies or Frankenstein's monster seems a sop to adults in the audience. For some unknown reason, the show's credits include an "Intimacy Director" -- this is ridiculous; there's a stylized bath scene and a moment when three of the characters embrace chastely. Someone thought it was necessary to have an 'intimacy' coordinator for this stuff? The opera strains for poetic effect and, on occasion, is poignant (the melted snowball for instance) but it's too busy and filled with action to achieve a truly lyrical effect.
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