In San Francisco Opera’s production of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” it is the U.S. in the year 2030. The country has been taken over by a religious autocracy that addresses the record low birth rate by “assigning” fertile young women to men in elite families to produce children. The young women are removed from their own families and made to live locked up in sterile dormitories as they await “postings.”
Based on Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed 1985 novel of the same name, the opera tells the story with music that is harsh, complex and mostly atonal, leavened only by an occasional gospel strain or a hymn, repeated at times to a fault, for example distorting lines from “Amazing Grace.”
While Poul Ruders’ complex score and Paul Bentley’s libretto spare audiences no detail of the brutish drama, and the characters could be more individually fleshed out, the story is told brilliantly from start to finish.
Co-commissioned with the Royal Danish Theatre, where it premiered in 2000 (this San Francisco Opera presentation is the West Coast premiere), the work’s imagery is powerful. Women, the handmaids, march, lined up, wearing red capes and white, winged nuns’ caps (Christina Cunningham’s costumes) as ordered by bullying “Aunts.” (Atwood said of the headgear: “They cannot see or be seen.”) The women are forbidden to read or write as well.
The central character is Offred, so named because she is “of Fred,” or belongs to Fred. As the show’s principal storyteller, she rarely leaves the stage, remembering and recording scenes and events past and present. American mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts takes the role full on, her voice dark and fierce as her thoughts go to her past life and her love of her husband and daughter.
Mezzo-soprano Simone McIntosh is the younger Offred of the “time before.” The duet in which they sing of the daughter is a high point.
Outstanding in the large cast is Moira, stunningly sung by Adler Fellow, soprano Caroline Corrales. With a gleaming voice, she portrays the rebellious handmaid who escapes. Sarah Cambridge is the sadistic, screechy Aunt Lydia, who rules the handmaids.
Offred is assigned to a Commander (John Relyea) and his barren wife, Serena Joy (Lindsay Ammann). Present in a horrific and explicit scene of forced intercourse, the autocracy’s prescribed ritual, Serena Joy is hopeful for a positive outcome yet expresses hatred for Offred in savage tones. Relyea, with his muscular, amber-colored bass, is conflicted, too. Defying society’s rules, he seeks a deeper relationship with Offred.
The women’s chorus performs forcefully, the fiery voices united in feverish chanting. Chloe Lamford’s stark white sets bring home the depth of their desperation.
With authority, Karen Kamensek conducts the large orchestra, richly enhanced with unusual percussion instruments, and director John Fulljames stages the work with dramatic point.
“The Handmaid’s Tale,” sung in English, relates to our time in many ways as women’s rights diminish everywhere.
San Francisco Opera’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” continues at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 17, Sept. 20, Sept. 26 and Oct. 1, and 2 p.m. Sept. 22 and Sept. 29 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. For tickets ($28-$438; $27.50 for Sept. 20 livestream), call (415) 864-3330 or visit sfopera.com.
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