A Wedding is a 2004 comic opera based on Robert Altman's 1978 film A Wedding and was composed by William Bolcom with a libretto written by Robert Altman and Arnold Weinstein.
Performance history
The Lyric Opera of Chicago commissioned the work, and the opera was first performed there on December 11, 2004. The premiere had stage direction by Altman and was conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. The film's 48 characters were trimmed down to 19 on stage.
Since the premiere, A Wedding has seen performances at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music, the University of Houston's Moores School of Music, University of Nebraska's Glenn Korff School of Music, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. It was performed by the Aspen Opera Center for the Aspen Music Festival and School's 2016 summer season.
Recently, the Music Academy of the West commissioned Bolcom to write a chamber version of the opera, with a reduced orchestration. This reorchestration received its premiere on August 8, 2008 in Santa Barbara, California.
Roles
Synopsis
Act I
Introduction. Dino and Muffin's wedding ceremony at a church in suburban Chicago.
Scene 1. Rita, the wedding organizer, gives orders to the bartenders working at the reception. A mysterious dog barks in the distance.
Scene 2. Nettie, the grandmother of the groom, has not attended the ceremony. She is in her bedroom in the family mansion. Her daughter Toni, with husband Jules, appear, followed by her other daughter Victoria with husband Luigi—the parents of the groom—and the unmarried third daughter, Diana. Jules, a physician turned art dealer, examines Nettie with a stethoscope. Victoria, too, is unwell and has missed the ceremony. Diana is in love with Randolph, the butler, who tells her that all the invited guests (some 200 of them) have sent regrets. Nettie closes her eyes and dies. Rita enters and discovers Nettie's death.
Scene 3. In the ballroom, the groom's family meets Snooks and Tulip, the parents of the bride, and their older daughter Buffy (a silent role) as well as Tulip's sister Candace. Jules is immediately attracted to Tulip.
Scene 4. The women make small talk in the powder room. Victoria's mysterious illness is mentioned again.
Scene 5. The men have drinks in the "grotto," Luigi's basement kingdom—a replica of a Roman trattoria. Snooks declines alcohol and tells the story of how he found God (or vice versa).
Scene 6. Jules and Toni in Nettie's room; Jules tells his wife that her mother needs rest.
Scene 7. In the ballroom. Enter William Williamson, the only guest at the wedding who is not a family member. It turns out that he was hired by Rita to attend the ceremony and shake everyone's hand. Jules discreetly tells Luigi that Nettie has died. The band strikes up a dance. Jules sneaks off to take care of Victoria.
Scene 8. Jules gives Victoria, a drug addict, her morphine shot.
Scene 9. The dance is in full swing. Buffy—a silent role—indicates to Dino in pantomime that she is pregnant and that he is the father. Jules woos Tulip with an aria about his glamorous art collection, and makes an advance that terrifies the mother of the bride.
Scene 10. In the ladies' room, Tulip meets Victoria and notices the sudden change in her demeanor. Left alone, she sings an aria about Jules, who has begun to sweep her off her feet. Jules enters the ladies' room. They agree to have a secret tryst in Tallahassee in two weeks. Tulip sings another aria, "a woman in love," and is almost late for the cutting of the cake.
Act II
Overture. The composer writes in the score: "The orchestra depicts a lone motorcycle coming from far away."
Scene 1. Enter Breedley, the best man who has missed the wedding because he spent the night in jail. Dino welcomes him and tells him about his predicament with Buffy.
Scene 2. In the ballroom, enter Aunt Bea (Nettie's twin sister, played by the same singer). Bea, also late for the ceremony, is an old socialist and shocks everyone with her wedding present, a painting featuring Muffin, the bride, in the nude, surrounded by factories and farms. Williamson, the hired guest, is the only one to defend the picture. Toni and Bea have a heated political argument. Then everyone heads for the cake table. Snooks wants to cover up the painting but Rita intervenes. He wants to punch her but Rita grabs his arm and bends it behind his back.
Scene 3. Breedley delivers an outrageous speech at the cake table. Immediately after, he spills the beans about Buffy's pregnancy to Candace, Tulip's sister. Tulip, who has just arrived after seeing Jules in the ladies' room, is horrified by the painting.