A Night at The Opera

“Aside from it being Halloween, why did you choose to do this?” a mildly irate audience member asked Nashville Opera CEO & Artistic director John Hoomes at the talkback for the company’s production of The Shining back in October. Based on Stephen King’s now-classic horror novel, the adaptation courted some controversy in the days leading up to opening night–especially among those who rattle off Puccini and Rossini like most of us reference Barilla. 

News Channel 5 ran a backhanded promo piece that positioned the decision to tap into King’s fanbase as a way for the company to cope with the ravages of COVID 19 and Gen Z’s eroded attention spans. But The Shining was no act of desperation from an artform near its own death rattle. Nor was it an irredeemable cultural transgression. It was a pure form of cultural populism that proved the Nashville Opera is one of the few sites of accessible art in a city besieged by monolithic corporate blandness and failing policies that are hurdling Music City’s middle class toward an unaffordable oblivion.

While the opera iteration of The Shining debuted in 2016, it has continued to garner pop culture clout that has long evaded the genre. It remains novel enough that composer Paul Moravec attended Nashville Opera’s production and made himself available for the 30-minute talk back after the show. In response to the nonplussed attendee’s interrogation of the company’s motivations, Moravec remained good natured. “Well, I wrote it for the money,” he half joked. “But I just thought it'd be a great opera. It's a perfect subject for an opera, in my view, because it's about love, death and power, which are in spades. Those are the things that make an opera…By the way, the body count in [Puccini’s] Tosca is higher than The Shining. It's actually more violent. It's true.”

In other cities, the opera as an institution has worked hard to maintain its mystique. It’s a genre reserved for the highest echelons of the culture class with no patience for the riff raff. But, under Hoomes’s direction, Nashville’s local company has done much to bridge artistry with Southern hospitality through initiatives like the mobile opera and a program for those with autism. However, the post-show talk backs have become the most integral tool for the company to make the art form accessible while deepening fans’ knowledge of the production process.

As Morevec shared, composing an opera in English is one of the most ambitious tasks facing those in the field–a facet of the form that those who would offer a surface level scoff at The Shining’s production may not likely consider. “English is a very hard language to set,” Morevic said. “It’s inherently kind of a syncopated language and a mismash. There are more words in English than any other language commonly spoken. And so it's a real challenge to figure out how to set the language. My model for setting the English language is the Beatles. Listen to the Beatles. They set the English language absolutely naturally. And I don't think they even thought about it.” 

Those who don’t frequent the opera would likely imagine the pearl clutching of elderly socialites at Moravec’s praise for the Fab Four. But the most surprising aspect of The Shining performance was how the nearly sold-out audience defied stereotypes. Beyond a handful of rogue Shining Twin cosplayers and the blowhard who loudly corrected a talk backer’s pronunciation of “aria,” the audience mirrored those images from that infamous New York magazine post-Inauguration “Cruel Kids” cover story. Millennials and Gen Z couples dressed in evening wear mingled with stalwart Nashville opera members. The snippets of stray conversation revealed it wasn’t necessarily The Shining that drew them here, but the prospect of a communal evening on the town engaging with what many perceive as an outmoded form.

Much of Nashville Opera’s next-gen success likely results from its affordability. A single opera ticket runs just under $40. In early summer, I snagged season pass for two tickets to all three shows for $180–what amounts to a moderate bar tab in the age of Broadway establishments hoping to cope with their increased property tax burden before they seriously consider an exodus to the ring counties. 

Of course, the Nashville Opera, like most of the city’s cultural pillars, was not immune to the mechanics of wokescold groupthink over the past half decade. TPAC’s overzealous COVID policies that lingered well into 2022 did clear damage to the interest of potential opera recruits in the younger demo. On the swag table by the auditorium entrance, a stack of rainbow Opera stickers sat largely untouched amid other offerings that were picked over 45 minutes before showtime. A quick glance at the Opera’s Board and Board of Directors serves as a microcosm of Nashville at the moment with Oracle executives, Ingrams, and “community leader” Olivia Hill as stand ins for the factions that will determine whether Nashville begins to resemble the Overlook Hotel more than the state’s economic engine. 

Though the evening made the obligatory gestures to horror fandom and identity politics, it was really all about the experience. One could get lost in King’s narrative and Moravec’s compositions, close their eyes, and imagine an early aughts Nashville of possibilities with no end in sight to its “It City” status.

The Nashville Opera’s season continues with Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West (January 22-24) and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (April 16-18).