Opera News: In ‘Awakenings’, Nearly Every Scene Was Poignant
TOBIAS PICKER’S OPERA Awakenings—inspired by Dr. Oliver Sacks’s 1973 memoir—has its own way of illuminating Sacks’s familiar story. Those looking for a re-telling of Sacks’s amazing breakthroughs and the devastating relapses of the “sleepy-sickness” patients will find it here, but only in part. With his husband, Aryeh Lev Stollman, as librettist, Picker narrates the dismaying story of the L-DOPA experiments conducted by Sacks. But Awakenings equally explores Sacks’s personal turmoil, a turmoil created by the famed doctor’s long-suppressed attraction to men, fueled as well by his obsession with a failed drug therapy.
Odyssey Opera, with its companion organization Boston Modern Orchestra Project in the pit, staged Awakenings in Boston’s Huntington Theatre Feb. 25. Gil Rose, founder of both ensembles, conducted. The premiere of Awakenings took place at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in June 2022, and most of the original cast and creatives took part in OO’s production, including director (and OTSL artistic director) James Robinson. The opera will be recorded on the BMOPSound label, which won a Grammy in 2020 for its recording of Picker’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox.