A bizarre and yet often beautiful work, In the Green is an ambitious new musical drawn from the early times of Hildegard von Bingen, a German abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, and eventual saint who lived during the 12th century.
For all of the loveliness of its music, this avant-garde chamber opera that is entirely composed and written by Grace McLean is hard to describe. Experiencing the 80-minute show is like taking a luminous acid trip.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★ review here.]
When Hildegard was a sickly eight-year-old, her noble family literally tithed her over to an abbey. There Hildegard was locked away in a cell with Jutta von Sponheim, a kindly visionary who rigorously cultivated the troubled child into growing up to become a remarkable woman.
The process they shared in isolation took some 30 years and ended only with Jutta’s demise.
In this unconventional musical, the role of Hildegard is played simultaneously by three adults identically clad in pale pink shifts: Rachael Duddy, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, and Hannah Whitney, who respectively manipulate rustic icons representing an eye, a mouth, and a hand that apparently are meant to symbolize Hildegard’s earthly desires.
Jutta, radiantly portrayed by McLean herself, guides and encourages the alternately defiant or despairing Hildegard along her journey to spiritual self-awareness. Mostly Hildegard is taught by Jutta to suppress or shed her worldly needs in order to reach a higher plane. Along the way, both Jutta and Hildegard reflect upon disturbing, usually bloody, incidents from their past.
Or something like that. Frankly, a good deal of In the Green mystifies me.
The title refers to viriditas, or greenness, which in a program note McLean says is a guiding principle in Hildegard’s philosophy. “She uses it to describe freshness, vitality, fertility, growth and as a metaphor for spiritual and physical health,” notes McLean.
Strangely enough, this verdant element does not crop up visually or otherwise during the musical, which mostly unfolds within the stark, and usually dark, circumstances of a cloistered cell. Such disconnection in the libretto extends to its abrupt conclusion, which scarcely reveals Hildegard in later life when she preached her philosophy around the medieval Rhineland.
There is no denying, however, the often glimmering allure of McLean’s score, which is a multi-layered polyphonic mix of harmonizing voices and bold, frequently percussive, instrumentals. Extensive vocal looping, driving beatbox rhythms, and syncopated effects, combined with repetitive wordplay, produce a shimmering musical charm that at times seems nearly hypnotic.
The music is exquisitely sung by the five-member female company, whose harmonies sound especially resonant. The score also features some eloquent passages for cello and qanun, a stringed instrument that sounds something like a zither. The orchestrations, crafted by McLean with Kris Kukul, may be highly sophisticated, yet they succeed in suggesting a medieval simplicity. It is very modern music that somehow recalls very olden times.
Given a typically sharp production by LCT3—the division of Lincoln Center Theater that is devoted to presenting new works by upcoming writers, directors, and designers—the musical is cleanly staged by director Lee Sunday Evans. Designer Kristen Robinson’s austere setting, with its dirt floor and circular shape, is illuminated with looming shadows and occasional shafts of sunlight by Barbara Samuels.
The Claire Tow Theater, where the production opened on Thursday, boasts a very pleasant bar as well as an expansive terrace overlooking the Lincoln Center campus. Let me suggest that anybody who plans to see In the Green should take advantage of these nice amenities in order to discuss afterwards with their dates the verities of McLean’s often compelling though often cryptic work.
