MUSIC
Tom Lynch
Set designer
When Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins decided to commission a new opera—his first in 26 years—he had three criteria: That it be an American subject. That it be timely. And that it have only two hours of music.
It also had to cap a season flush with nineteenth-century Verdi melodrama. To pull off a natural transition, Jenkins recruited Seattle Opera veterans—including set designer Tom Lynch—to create an authentic look and feel for the nascent Amelia.
Lynch has seen his share of new commissions. “Good friend” Wendy Wasserstein asked him to design one of her first Broadway plays, The Heidi Chronicles—those sets earned him a Tony nomination. He breezed through the rest of his illustrious 30-year career in a two-hour interview at his Eastlake studio, walking me through the entire scenic design process.
For Amelia, he started as he always does: researching and sketching. Then on to figure modeling, followed by drafting. In his studio, he pored over photographs of rural Northern Vietnam, his inspiration for an elaborately recreated village at the heart of one of the opera’s most dramatic scenes. Amelia, based on librettist Gardner McFall’s collection of poems The Pilot’s Daughter, is elegant in its simplicity—a young girl faces the loss of her father during the Vietnam War. In contrast to the spare story line, the set features jagged mountains and lush green rice paddies: a vibrant scene for a violent episode. “The green is almost too vivid,” Lynch said, studying the pictures. “I remember just being hit on the side of the face by these images [of the Vietnam War on TV].”
The intensely personal drama follows Amelia over 20 years, from “loss to recuperation, paralysis to flight.” The libretto is sung in English and Vietnamese, featuring rising young mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey—a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s young artist program—making her Seattle Opera debut in the titular role. All this in two hours. —LD
Amelia, May 8–22, Seattle Opera, McCaw Hall, 206-389-7676; seattleopera.org
Published: February 2010
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