The opera Andy Vores has made out of Virginia Woolf's skit Freshwater holds, as 'twere, the funhouse mirror up to life, and in it we find our own reflection.

Freshwater isn't flawless, but it works, and with a few adjustments it ought to enjoy a long life as a small-company piece, and a gift to opera workshops. By introducing this first opera by a young composer who lives in our midst, Boston University was doing the right thing, and the payoff was an unpretentious little triumph for just about everybody.

Woolf's Freshwater is a playlet composed for amateur performance by the author and her friends for an audience of the Bloomsburv court and cult. In the resort town of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, she assembles a cast of eminent and eccentric Victorians being themselves, or what popular culture had made of them—Tennyson, the poet. Julia Cameron, the photographer, G.F. Watts, the painter, Ellen Terry, the actress, and Charles Hay Cameron, lawyer and scholar of the classics. She springs her best joke at the beginning of the second act, when C.H. Cameron has a vision of the future—which turns out to be Virginia Woolf's own present. Cameron's fantasy of a beautiful ballerina foresees the actuality of John Maynard Keynes' beloved "Loppy" Lydia Lopokova. The Victorians were busily and foolishly turning their lives into art, and letting art take over their lives—just as the Bloomsbury set was.

This is a joke that doesn’t make much impact in the opera, and probably can't. Woolf's topicality has dated, now that the poems of Tennyson and the achievements of the others are no longer part of the common culture. But her playlet is still pertinent, because people still make fools of themselves in the pursuit of ideals, and there's something both sweet and noble about that. Vores’ music scampers delightfully along, with many an ingenious touch of orchestration and savvy musical allusions to parallel Woolf's literary ones—and yet Vores never resorts to pastiche. This is real theater music, with stage direction composed into it. All the way through there are shimmering, undulant references to the nearby sea, never merely scene-painting, yet also never, thank goodness, representations of “the sea of life." At the end the music accumulates some poignancy. The goodbyes mark more than the departure of the characters from each other but also represent the end of an era—and there is no hint of heaviness; Vores lets them go on even longer than the "Buona sera" in The Barber of Seville. Most of the opera is cleverly written for singers, and everyone in the opera has a good part. There are some capital ensembles to boot—so good one wished there were more of them, or that Vores would let them flower a little. And that's the only real problem with the opera: the characters are so busy spitting out one-liners at scherzo-trio speed t5hat they seldom get the chance to sing and soar—and that's part of what makes Falstaff and Gianni Schicchi imperishable, and what makes the comic operas of Wolf-Ferrari still hold the stage in Italy. There's a grand opportunity in the second scene when Ellen Terry awakens to love, but Vores sidesteps it. If Woolf's text doesn't offer a chance, why not add something from one of her other works?

Another issue is the orchestration, which may double up too much in the same registration as the singers. The “solution" BU evidently found electronically was not satisfactory—it put a harsh glare onto the voices, eradicated dynamic contrast, erased words, and amplified footfalls as much as consonants.

The staging of the principal ensemble scenes by Will Graham in a delightful period resort decor by Brent Wachter (set) and Jessica Pazdernik (costumes) was intelligent and inventive; it did what the music told it to, and added witty touches of its own. There was no way Catherine Watson could be made to resemble dumpy Queen Victoria, so she came on looking like Good Queen Bess II. Less satisfactory was Scene Two “Ellen Terry on the Beach." The music isn't helpful enough, and the staging faltered—where, exactly was the water, and did Victorians wear laced boots into it?

As you would expect, David Hoose presided over a meticulous performance, very well played by the BU Orchestra (the musical preparation was by Allison Voth); one doesn’t associate House with mirth, but he gave the humor full measure. The cast provided alert caricature that seldom fell back on stock, and the singing was strong, particularly by sopranos Anne Harley and Cynthia Plumb and baritone Nicholas Robinson. Paul Kirby skillfully managed Watt's ungratefully written role. Outstanding performances in a capable company came from the vivid mezzo Jan Elizabeth Norvelle as Julia Cameron and Mark-Andrew Cleveland as the mellifluous and self-infatuated Tennyson. What a treat it was to hear a new opera that isn’t too long and too loud, that doesn't strain after profundity, that aims for charm, and reveals a truth worth wondering: In self mockery lies self-understanding.
Richard Dyer• The Boston Globe
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