The Phoenix (2018)

The chance to rave about choral writing in a modern opera is rare, but Tarik O’Regan’s The Phoenix, a new opera commissioned and premiered last weekend by Houston Grand Opera, offers up some of the most sublime, incantatory choruses I’ve ever heard. … The Phoenix is ultimately an immigrant story with unexpected historical insight—who knew that Mozart and Da Ponte were penning operas around the same time the U.S. Bill of Rights was being written? And the libretto is sprinkled with winks and knowing nods.

...O’Regan is not above seeding the score with Easter eggs such as gleeful Mozart echoes in Vienna or letting the low strings crawl through the London scene like the lapping Thames. But overall the neutral tonality — neither aggressively harsh nor conspicuously melodious — serves to soften Da Ponte’s memories, benignly suggesting they may be somewhat less accurate than he’s making them out to be.... just as [Da Ponte's] life proved what someone can accomplish through sheer pluck, so does O’Regan and Caird’s “Phoenix” deserve a fighting chance at posterity.

Tarik O’Regan composed a complex score, rich in the choral and ensemble music for which O’Regan is justly famous…. Some scenes, such as that of Da Ponte’s arrival in America, have the feel of Benjamin Britten’s great seafaring opera choruses. Two of the roles – that of Old Lorenzo and of Enzo/Young Lorenzo – are especially effective, obvious vehicles, as they are for its world premiere, for the vocal and dramatic talents of major operatic stars.

…this opera is a remarkable piece of work – it mirrors the unique life of its subject and incorporates themes that resonate even today – that of the immigrant escaping the tyranny of their homeland, the extended family and diaspora, and the blending of identities that comes from living in a globalized world.

If Da Ponte is a phoenix, O’Regan’s score is a chameleon, shifting styles in a way that amplifies the story’s changes of locale and circumstance. The music tips a hat to 18th-century opera by sometimes unfolding in distinct numbers. But within that framework, the music ranges widely.