Racette's The Letter

The opera The Letter may truly be said to belong to Patricia Racette. A new opera commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera, it received its first performance on July 25. She consulted with the composer on how to write for her voice. This is something that Gluck sneered at, but I'm always glad to hear when a composer works with singers. I think it was successful in this case.

The tenor/lover's role is enhanced through flashbacks, including a complete reconstruction of the scene which led up to the murder. She shoots him twice. This includes an effective love duet and is in general the heart of the opera.

Patricia Racette is a great artist and was completely in her element here. Her character runs the gamut from romantic love, passion, deception, cruelty and rage. It is virtually a dream part.

My take on this opera is that it is dramatically quite effective and that the music enhances the drama. It lasted only an hour and forty minutes. We had our doubts about the ending. There was no proper dramatic build-up for the suicide. In the movie the Chinese woman kills her. If she is going to kill herself, we need to feel it coming, and we don't.

The music by Paul Moravec did not intrude into ones consciousness. Nothing in this opera could not have been composed for the Bette Davis movie in 1940, and it functioned in the drama much like a movie soundtrack, heightening the drama while not calling attention to itself. Though the style of the music is clearly from the first half of the twentieth century, the overall effect was engrossing and quite pleasant.

Patrick Summers, the music director of the Houston Grand Opera, conducted. I was pleased to see James Maddalena as the lawyer who actually regrets his sleazy behavior. His portrayal was moving.

I probably haven't said enough. With new operas one always wonders if it will be produced again. It is a work that could be performed by second tier companies with big orchestra budgets. How about paired with Gianni Schicchi?


This is the composer talking to fans.

Plot of The Letter

The opera The Letter is by Paul Moravec on a libretto by Terry Teachout after the play by W. Somerset Maugham. It fills the requirement that opera is a chick flick. You don’t get chick-flickier than an opera based on a Bette Davis movie.

This is an opera based on a movie, based on a play, based on a short story, and finally based on a real incident in Singapore.

The lover says he wants to break up with the heroine, that he has found someone new. The heroine shoots him 6 times, stopping only because she runs out of bullets. Heroine makes up a story that the lover was trying to rape her.

A letter surfaces in her handwriting arranging for a tryst with the lover. Oops. The lover’s new Chinese girlfriend is the one who discovers the letter and offers it for sale. The price is all the money they have. The idea of the letter first appeared in the play.

There are variations in the many versions of the story. In the movie the Chinese girlfriend is his wife. In the other versions she’s his mistress.

The heroine is tried for murder and acquitted. Her husband says he still loves her, but she admits she still loves the man she killed. Each version of the story seems to have a different ending. In the movie the Chinese wife kills her. In the opera she commits suicide.

The major innovation in the opera is that the tenor lover reappears in flashback at various points.