An African American Requiem @ Fort Worth Opera

—Wayne Lee Gay

Timely, heart-wrenching, and impressively conceived, Damien Geter's An African American Requiem had its Texas premiere Saturday under the auspices of the Fort Worth Opera at TCU's Cliburn Concert Hall. The work debuted with the Portland, Oregon Symphony in May 2022 with a subsequent performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., shortly thereafter.

Virginia-born, Oregon-based composer Geter, who conducted Saturday's performance, owns an impressive résumé: as bass-baritone, he has performed roles ranging from Mozart to Gershwin with companies including the Metropolitan Opera; he has produced a growing body of compositions, largely inspired by the heritage of African American music and the ongoing struggles of the African American community; and he is co-author of a sociological-political study of European musical culture. 

Saturday's performance brought together an impressive ensemble including a powerful quartet of soloists, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and a superb choral ensemble trained by Alfrelynn Roberts and including Fort Worth Opera resident artists and the Fort Worth Opera Chorus. Among the soloists, Metropolitan Opera artist Brandie Sutton took on the dramatic soprano solo role, while Wagnerian mezzo-soprano Karmesha K. Peake handily conquered the demanding mezzo-soprano solos. Baritone Thomas Cannon combined a resonant timbre with dramatic sensibility in his prophet-like solo role, and tenor Bernard Holcomb utilized his wide range in the equally intense tenor role. The chorus met the huge challenges presented with precise professionalism; the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra handily navigated the constantly shifting demands of this eclectic score.

Geter has created here a hypnotically engaging, emotionally charged experience, built around but not limited to the Latin text of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. That Latin text has historically inspired some of the grandest choral works in the repertoire, including iconic settings by Mozart, Berlioz, Fauré, Verdi, and Duruflé.

Here, however, Geter draws most strikingly on the example of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem of 1962. Britten added texts from World War I poet Wilfred Owen, while Geter intersperses the Latin words with traditional African-American spirituals, a speech by pioneer civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, and the last words of police violence victim Eric Garner. The intertwining of African-American spirituals also follows the example—both structurally and stylistically—of Michael Tippet's oratorio A Child of Our Time, composed in 1941 in response to the Nazi Holocaust.

The opening moments of An African American Requiem announce a work of dark purpose and grand ambition; immediately thereafter, an unaccompanied choral fugato on the words "Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion" ("To Thee, God, in Zion") evokes centuries of somber liturgy, after which a touch of blues informs the Kyrie ("Lord have mercy"), sung in English. Copious brass, in keeping with obvious reference, proclaim the last trumpet in the ensuing Tuba Mirum ("Wondrous trumpet" or "strange sound")—but with a different sort of last trumpet and strange sound: a police siren accompanying Eric Garner's last words, "I can't breathe." The listener is further urged to ponder a host of meanings in the gorgeously smooth setting of the spiritual "There's a Man Goin' Round," juxtaposed with the Latin text Liber scriptus proferetur ("The written book will be brought forth").

This pattern of vivid, often complex moments and generally stunning effects continues through most of the 85-minute work, with biting modernist dissonance eliding—but only sparingly—toward brief moments of hope and serenity.

Traditionally, composers of Requiem settings allow a moment of triumph in the Sanctus, with its crowning "Hosanna"; Geter replaces that text entirely with the campfire spiritual "Kumbaya," complete with tambourine but in what is surely the most sophisticated contrapuntal rendition ever of that familiar tune. Another chillingly ironic moment arrives with the setting of "Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus addictis" ("The doomed are sentenced to searing flames") as a jangling Caribbean dance.

But the most arresting moment for this listener came with the Lacrimosa ("Tearful will be that day on which will arise the guilty man who is to be judged"). Here, a minor key version of the melody of the Star-Spangled Banner is presented instrumentally; we hear, in our minds, the words, "And the land of the free"—but the melody is suddenly halted, leaving a blank silence instead of the note for the word "free." At that point, An African American Requiem becomes a Requiem for all Americans, calling out our continued failure to achieve the freedom our founding documents promised and proclaimed.

For the larger part of the Requiem, Geter creates a relentless musical, emotional, and intellectual momentum, demonstrating a remarkable level of skill and inspiration in convincingly linking disparate elements. However, Geter's instincts fail him at a key moment near the end, in a setting of Wells' 750-word speech "Lynching: Our National Crime" from 1909. The speech itself is a marvel of logic and passion; it does not, however, set comfortably to music. At this point, the impetus of An African-American Requiem grinds to a halt for an extended moment of didacticism—an element which should be applied only in brief bits to a musical work. Soloist Peake delivered the movement, basically a hybrid recitative-aria, with stamina and expressive passion that came as close as possible to saving the moment. A brief spoken text, in this performance intoned by S. Renee Mitchell, likewise detracts from rather than adding to the otherwise powerful musical architecture. A purely orchestral postlude serves as an effective closing moment.

Except for the aforementioned structural miscalculation near the end, An African American Requiem is a work well worthy of widespread performance and a place in the international choral-orchestral repertoire. Its presentation by the Fort Worth Opera is a commendable contribution to the musical, cultural, and spiritual community.

WEB: fwopera.org