Chamber Opera in Two Acts
Music by Thomas Whitman
Libretto by Nathalie Anderson,
after Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia" (public domain).
Synopsis:
The opera follows the trajectory of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story, A Scandal in Bohemia, in which the detective is famously “beaten by a woman’s wit.” Holmes is hired by the King of Bohemia to retrieve compromising documents from an “adventuress,” the operatic soprano Irene Adler, who – the King confides – threatens to ruin his impending marriage by revealing their affair. Adopting various disguises, Holmes spies on the woman in her house; attends what appears to be her wedding, uninvited; and, ultimately, dressed as an eccentric clergyman, sets off a smoke-bomb in her home to discover where she keeps her valuables. In the course of his investigation, Holmes gradually comes to realize that the King’s story doesn’t ring true to the woman’s character. Ultimately, Adler is revealed as an independent and resourceful woman, herself a victim of the King. She sees through Holmes’s disguises and evades him, retaining the documents as protection against the King’s bullying. In the postlude, we see Adler as fully equal to Holmes, and thus a potential partner in romance. Yet Holmes chooses to remain solitary, unwilling to risk his objectivity through emotional involvement.
Work in Progress. Expected date of completion: summer 2008.
Orchestra 2001 plans to give a semi-staged concert version of this opera in February 2008 at concert venues in Philadelphia and Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. The cast will include vocalists Markus Beam (Sherlock Holmes), Laura Heimes (Irene Adler), Julian Rodescu (The Reader/The King/Minister) and Ben Wager (Watson/Godfrey Norton).