The Handmaid's Tale at SF Opera

The 2000 English-language opera The Handmaid's Tale by Danish composer Poul Ruders and English librettist Paul Bentley, just finished its seven-performance run this week at the San Francisco Opera. Based on Margaret Atwood's prophetic 1985 novel depicting patriarchy gone full authoritarian in the United States, it was yet another triumph in General Director Matthew Shilvock's championing of contemporary opera, which seems to be in a new golden age right now. For most of the 20th century, you would be lucky to hear a new opera once in a decade at the big opera houses of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and they would usually be one-off affairs that were never produced after their premieres. (Andrew Imbrie's 1976 Angle of Repose at the SF Opera is a good example.) Two former San Francisco General Directors are partly responsible for reinvigorating the art form in this country: Lotfi Mansouri with his introduction of supertitles in 1983, and David Gockley who gave the world premieres of 35 operas during his tenure at Houston Grand Opera, including John Adams's seminal Nixon in China. (All production photos are by Cory Weaver.)

I saw the final performance on Tuesday evening, while the U.S. Vice Presidential debate was happening, featuring Republican JD Vance who seems like a character straight from this war on women narrative. The opera's action is graphically violent and horrifying, with onstage depictions of rape and execution by hanging for various crimes such as "gender treachery" (think homosexuality). Rouder's complex musical score complements and intensifies the sheer awfulness of this Christian-based fascism.

Recorded history and its operatic depiction is usually a man's world, so it was gratifying to see such a huge cast where only a few of the characters were male. This allowed for a wide range of female singers to shine on the War Memorial stage, and there was not a weak performance in the bunch. Sarah Cambridge was appropriately terrifying as Aunt Lydia, who seemed to be channeling Evelyn Dockson in the 1950 women's prison film Caged. Katrina Galka was poignant as the half-mad Janine who thinks she's still a waitress in the Before Times, and Sara Couden's astonishing contralto voice was a highlight as she played a sympathetic maid in the Commander's home.

Musically, my favorite moment of the opera was when the Commander's wife Serena Joy is seen on video singing Amazing Grace while at least two or three other things are going on in the orchestra and onstage, creating an eerie cacophony. Lindsay Ammann made a striking SF Opera debut as Serena, a former Christian singing star relegated to a shunned, venemous, stay-at-home wife for the Commander.

The childless Serena is forced to participate in the breeding of our heroine, Offred, a ritual rape by the Commander modeled on a tale in Genesis. "Rachel was unable to get pregnant, so she offered her handmaid, Bilhah, to Jacob to have children for her. Leah, who had no trouble conceiving, gave Jacob her handmaid, Zilpah." Bass John Relyea was handsome and oddly sympathetic in the role, even though the character was one of the founders of Gilead's dystopian universe (JD Vance came to mind yet again).

A secret cadre of resisters pops up throughout the opera, including Ofglen, sung gorgeously by soprano Rhoslyn Jones (above right). Mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Beteag as the ultra-liberal Offred's Mother gave a fine, funny performance as the ultimate I Told You So matriarch. Tenor Brenton Ryan continues to make a big impression in small roles at the SF Opera (Janek in The Makropulos Case, the Novice in Billy Budd, and Eros in Antony and Cleopatra). As Nick, the Commander's chauffeur who becomes our heroine's lover and possible rescuer, he brings some welcome kindness and sensuality to the harsh narrative.

Adler Fellow Caroline Corrales (above left, with the bunny ears) was sensational as Offred's lesbian feminist friend who manages to escape from handmaid hell, but who is caught and brought back to a bordello where the unsurprisingly hypocritical male elite has their sexual fun away from the rigid Christian doctrines they are enforcing on everyone else.

Finally, mezzo-soprano soprano Irene Roberts as Offred was magnificent in very challenging vocal music while onstage for almost every moment of the three-hour opera. The last time I saw her was as the adorable Dorabella in the great 2021 production of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, and this was quite a stretch. She is seen above with her Before Times double, the French mezzo-soprano Simone McIntosh.

The constant flashbacks were the weakest dramaturgical moments for me and the sentimentality around Offred's longing for her kidnapped daughter felt out of place in such a rigorously unsentimental work. It didn't matter. The conductor Karen Kamensek and the SF Opera Orchestra did a fabulous job with what sounded like difficult music, although I would have to hear the opera again to make any pronouncements about the score itself. The staging by English director John Fulljames was clean and persuasive, and the set design by the English artist Chloe Lamford was hyper-functional for the 30+ quickly changing scenes. (Lamford also created the revolving two-story set for Saarijaho's Innocence this summer and she is my new artistic heroine.) Finally, the sound design and mixing engineer Rick Jacobsohn pulled off a small miracle. According to program notes, the entire opera was amplified but I didn't hear any evidence of that, which is the highest possible compliment.