World Premier of PROXIMITY at Lyric Opera of Chicago
An opera about technology, loneliness, the planet, and gun violence
Last night I saw the final show of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s season. I’ve never seen an opera like Proximity, which combines three operas by different composers (Daniel Bernard Roumain, Caroline Shaw, and John Luther Adams) and librettists (Anna Deavere Smith, Caroline Shaw, Jocelyn Clarke, and John Haines) into a powerful evening of theater and music.
The Lyric’s program claims that Proximity is a “collaborative complement of some of the most creative minds of our time — winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Grammy Awards, and Emmy Awards, as well as MacArthur “Geniue” Grant winner Yuval Sharon making his mainstage directorial debut.
Sharon also directed the production of “Twilight Gods” that took place at the Millenium Park underground parking garage here in Chicago in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. A friend and I drove through the garage, stopping in designated places where stage lights would illuminate a Wagnerian character to sing as groups of 20 or so of us listened through our radios. We wore masks and kept our windows shut (as requested), lest the virus fly from one car to another.
Twilight, Gods was the most unusual and astonishing opera production I’d ever seen until PROXIMITY, which opened and continued with a simple stage illuminated by a dazzling display of sometimes psychadelic lights.
The Walkers, written by acclaimed playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith, is based on actual interviews about reducing gun violence that were organized by Chicago CRED (Create Real Economic Destiny). It was founded by former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who’d previously worked as CEO for Chicago Public Schools. One of the actors was a suit-clad, gray-haired Arne-Duncan lookalike who quoted Arne’s exact words. That part blew me away.
I’m still hearing moments from the opera and there isn’t enough time to mention everything that moved me about the music, but the gorgeous harmonies and brilliant singing stood out. There was one character, “B,” who is played by a large-boned, long brown-haired woman in a business suit with a deep baritone voice. Lucia Lucas recently performed as the woman-chasing Don Giovanni with Tulsa Opera and has sung the title roles of some of opera’s most favorite swashbuckling men. But last night, she was a woman with a gorgeous, deep baritone voice. And in several movements, she sang opposite the renowned countertenor, John Holiday. God, it was stuning.
For those who don’t know much about opera, it was a sly move for the woman to sing with a man’s baritone voice and the man to sing like a powerful soprano. Historically, before women were allowed to sing or perform on a stage, men played all the roles. If cross singing of roles was condoned nearly five centuries ago, why was I so surprised to see it happening on stage last night? Maybe because there’s a faction in this country that refuses to accept any differences in gender identification or acceptance today. They’re looking back at the 1950s for guidance while perhaps the rest of us understand that different gender identities existed even in Biblical times (before the common era).
There was a gang scene against the backdrop of aerial views of Chicago neighborhoods, and the costumes looked exactly like what you’d see in a rap video: women with lots of bling, men in baggy pants, everyone packing heat. A child is shot, a female gang killer insists it wasn’t her, the n — word (and other words I’ve never before heard at the opera) is bandied about, and the orchestra is playing underneath it all. There were moments when I felt an almost sensory overload — or tears streaming, like when a group of teenagers came onstage, singing about an end to gun violence.
This has been a rough time in our society. Just this week there was another school shooting, and because it involved a transgender woman, Republicans are focusing on destroying gender choice as they destroyed women’s choice, and few if any of them are willing to concede that we need some gun control laws.
Proximity is a mind-bending production that blasts what’s happening in the world but also shines a light on it. Maybe that explains why there were so many empty seats. Too many people don’t want to hear about the world as it is. Or, to be specific, Chicago as it is.
We’re voting for a new mayor on Tuesday. I’ll let you know what happens.
