The Hours is a 2022 opera in two acts with music by Kevin Puts and an English-language libretto by Greg Pierce, based on Michael Cunningham's 1998 novel and its 2002 film adaptation, both with the same title.
The opera was first performed on 18 March 2022 in a concert presentation at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and received its stage premiere on 22 November 2022 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The stage premiere was audio-streamed at the Met Opera website, and the performance of 10 December was presented in movie theaters as a part of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series.
Contents
Genesis
The idea for the opera arose from a conversation between soprano Renée Fleming and composer Kevin Puts when they were collaborating on his 2019 song cycle The Brightness of Light. Someone in Fleming's office suggested Michael Cunningham's novel, and they both thought this was the right choice. The opera was commissioned by New York's Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Greg Pierce, who wrote the libretto for the 2016 opera Fellow Travelers, as well as the lyrics of two musicals with John Kander, The Landing (2013) and Kid Victory (2015), was hired to write the libretto. In an interview with NPR, Pierce stated: "The Met is a very big space. It's got a massive chorus, a big orchestra. Why not make use of all of that? You could do an Hours that's really intimate, a chamber piece. That's not what we wanted to do." A lot of the book consists of a stream of consciousness, that is character's thoughts and perceptions, "and the idea that they [the chorus] could potentially go in and out of the minds of these main characters and argue with them, they could be in inner argument – it was really exciting to us", Pierce said.
Performance history
The Hours was first performed on 18 March 2022 in a preview concert presentation at the Kimmel Center by the Philadelphia Orchestra under its conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The singers included Renée Fleming as Clarissa Vaughan, Jennifer Johnson Cano as Virginia Woolf, Kelli O'Hara as Laura Brown, Brett Polegato as Richard, Jamez McCorkle as Leonard Woolf, Deborah Nansteel as Sally, and Brandon Cedel as Dan. Nézet-Séguin, who is also the music director of the Metropolitan Opera, conducted the stage premiere at that company's house on 22 November 2022, in a production by Phelim McDermott. The set and costume designer was Tom Pye, and the choreographer was Annie-B Parson. According to Jeff Lunden, writing for NPR, "the chorus and dancers are constantly onstage, helping to underline the central characters' emotional states." The company performed the opera eight times as part of their 2022–23 season. The premiere was broadcast on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SiriusXM and audio-streamed at metopera.org. The performance of 10 December was video-cast to movie theatres as part of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series and telecast on 17 March 2023 by PBS as part of the Great Performances at the Met series.
Instrumentation
The instrumentation is from the composer's website:
Woodwinds: 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo, alto flute in G), 2 oboes, English horn in F, 3 clarinets in B♭ (3rd doubling E♭ clarinet, bass clarinet in B♭), alto saxophone in E♭, 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon)
Brass: 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in C (1st doubling piccolo trumpet in B♭), 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba
Percussion: timpani, other percussion (4 players)
Other: piano (doubling celesta), 2 harps
Strings: violins, violas, cellos, double basses
Synopsis
The story is about a single day in the lives of three women: book editor Clarissa Vaughan in New York's West Village in 1999; novelist Virginia Woolf in Richmond, England, in 1923; and housewife and mother Laura Brown in Los Angeles in 1949.
Act 1
The chorus sings fragments of the opening line of Virginia's novel Mrs. Dalloway (the working title of which was The Hours): "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
Clarissa and her partner Sally are preparing their apartment for a party in honor of Clarissa's best friend, Richard, who later that day is intended to receive an award for his recently published novel. Richard is seriously ill with AIDS, and Sally questions whether he will be able to come. Clarissa insists he will be able to attend. Clarissa goes out to buy flowers at a nearby shop. On her way she passes through Washington Square and notices the unusual singing of a Man Under the Arch. By chance, she encounters Walter, a writer of gay romances who knows Richard and whom she invites to the party. Walter also expresses doubt that Richard is well enough to attend the party.
In her house in the London suburb of Richmond, Virginia has awakened and entered her office, anxious to begin her new novel. Her husband Leonard, a proof editor, is concerned about her health and tries to get her to eat some breakfast, but she refuses. She considers the many roles he plays in her life.
Clarissa arrives at the flower shop, and the florist Barbara kisses her on the mouth. Clarissa briefly imagines what it would be like if Barbara and she were lovers and they would never need to leave the shop. She finds the flowers she wants and departs for Richard's apartment.
In her office, Virginia finds it difficult to begin her novel and thinks of central London and its many diversions, so different from her drab existence in suburban Richmond. Overcoming her hesitation, she starts to write.
In Los Angeles in her bed, Laura Brown is reading the same lines from Mrs. Dalloway. She feels guilty that she is avoiding her duties as a wife and mother. Although it is her husband Dan's birthday, and he and their six-year-old son Richie are waiting for her in the kitchen, she resumes reading. Eventually, she goes down to the kitchen, where Dan and Richie express worries
about her. Dan leaves for work.
Act 2
Laura enters a room at the Normandy Hotel with her tattered copy of Mrs. Dalloway and a bottle of pills. She recalls a bizarre encounter with the Hotel Clerk. While reading Mrs. Dalloway, she imagines Virginia heading to the river to kill herself. Laura considers suicide. Virginia, distracted by the voice of the Man Under the Arch, is found by Leonard, who expresses his fear of finding her dead and having to tell her sister Vanessa of his failure to save her. Virginia is disturbed by the intensity of his distress.
On her way to Richard's, Clarissa hears a choir singing lyrics seemingly directed at her. In front of Richard's building, she encounters Louis, Richard's former boyfriend, who can't decide whether to visit him. Louis recollects a summer the three of them were in Wellfleet, when he was shut out by their closeness, Richard wanting him only for his body, but wanting Clarissa for everything else.
In her office, Virginia hears children talking and wonders if she's going crazy. In the garden, she finds her sister Vanessa and her three children: Julian, Quentin, and Angelica. Quentin has found a sick bird, which he thinks is still alive. They decide to make a bed of grass for it to die in. Virginia identifies the bird as female because it is "a bit more drab" than the males. She begins making the bed for the bird, adding roses picked from the garden. She realizes the bird is dead and begins manically making the bed, accidentally pricking Angelica's finger with a thorn. Vanessa and her children retreat, realizing the severity of Virginia's illness.
Laura in her hotel room rebukes herself for thinking of suicide when she has a young son and a baby on the way to take care of. She decides to remain alive and return to her obligations as a mother.
Clarissa lets herself into Richard's apartment and finds him on the window sill, five stories above the ground. She attempts to persuade him to come back in. He says he only wanted to write something good, not great. Something that would touch someone. He tells her he loves her, slides off the sill, and falls outside. Clarissa hesitantly peers out the window and realizes he is dead.
Clarissa appears in the street and bends over Richard's lifeless body. The chorus can be heard
Recording
2022 (HD video/audio CDs): Renée Fleming as Clarissa Vaughan; Kelli O'Hara as Laura Brown; Joyce Di Donato as Virginia Woolf; William Burden as Louis; Sean Panikkar as Leonard Woolf; Kyle Ketelsen as Richard; Brandon Cedel as Dan Brown; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Chorus, and Ballet, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Phelim McDermott (producer); Tom Pye (set and costume designer); Annie-B Parson (choreographer); Finn Ross (projection designer); Gary Halvorson (video director); Christine Baranski (host); recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera House on 10 December 2022; streaming HD video at Met Opera on Demand; audio, streaming and CDs, released in 2024 on Erato.