Blanche, Stanley find their singing voices in ‘Streetcar’

Good opera always has depended on the kindness of audiences.

So the operatic adaptation of the classic Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” should be no different. Modesto’s Townsend Opera tackles the celebrated work with the help of critically acclaimed director Brad Dalton, who previously produced the piece for the Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera and Carnegie Hall, among others.

The story follows Southern belle Blanche DuBois as she arrives to stay at the New Orleans apartment of her sister and her husband, Stella and Stanley Kowalski. The 1947 play was famously adapted for screen in 1951 starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. Four decades later, in 1995, an operatic version was created by award-winning composer André Previn.

Dalton worked as an assistant for that premiere production at the San Francisco Opera under its director, Colin Graham. Since then he has gone on to direct several variations of the opera across the country, from San Diego to Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas.

The Townsend production will use all of the staging from a Grand Rapids, Mich., production Dalton helmed two years ago. It also will be used in an anniversary production of the opera in the piece’s hometown of New Orleans in 2017.

“This production will be both realistic and step out of realism to show more of an expressionistic view of the story,” Dalton said. “You will see an epic presentation of ‘Streetcar’ with the emotions blown up.”

The show also will be the first production done under the new artistic partnership between Townsend Opera and the Fresno Grand Opera. The two companies joined forces late last year under Townsend general and artistic director Matthew Buckman to put on the same season. The companies are sharing costs for the casts, costumes, sets and more.

“A Streetcar Named Desire” will premiere in Modesto on Jan. 23, with a second production Jan. 25. Then it will have one staging at Fresno Grand Opera on Feb. 15.

Stepping into the show’s two signature roles will be Townsend veteran and soprano Carrie Hennessey as Blanche and company newcomer and baritone Dan Kempson as Stanley. The actors said portraying roles made famous on screen by Leigh and Brando was daunting. But they both wanted to be as true to the material as possible.

“The most important thing to me was to play Stanley, and not Marlon Brando,” Kempson said. “If I’m trying to be Marlon Brando, I’ll never be better than Marlon Brando. But if I try to be Stanley, I can be as powerful as possible.”

The Connecticut native comes to the role after just landing a Grammy nomination for a best opera recording of Milhaud’s “L’orestie d’Eschyle,” which was released last year. A couple of weeks after the Townsend production wraps, he will travel to Los Angeles to attend the Grammy Awards. He has performed at The Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Santa Fe Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Pittsburgh Opera and others across the country.

Joining Kempson on stage will be Sacramento-based singer Hennessey, who returns to the company after playing Mimi in the Townsend production of “La Bohème” last January. Before that, she played the title role in Townsend’s “The Merry Widow” and has performed as a featured soloist with the Modesto Symphony Orchestra.

To prepare for her role as the troubled, high-strung Blanche, Hennessey said she studied Southern culture and mannerisms.

“I wanted to make sure I could inhabit this Southern culture,” she said, “that sense of name and decorum that is really all that Blanche had to hang on to.”

The Townsend production has a cast of nine, including soprano Kiera Duffy as Stella Kowalski and tenor James Callon as Harold “Mitch” Mitchell. The action takes place on three sets, which stand in for a number of different settings.

Many of the most well-known lines of the play and movie, from “Stella!” to “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” remain in the opera. While Previn’s jazz-infused score is new, the operatic adaptation retains much of Williams’ writing.

To get audiences in the mood for the story, the company will host an “A Streetcar Named Desire” preview party with a screening of the 1951 movie and live music Saturday at the State Theatre. Townsend cast members will be present and Hennessey’s band The Re-Assemblers of Whimsy will perform. The event begins at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Dalton said all these years later, the tale remains so powerful because of the power of Williams’ language and our continued sympathy for Blanche’s plight.

“This (story) really is a plea for all of the sensitive people in the world who have been bulldozed by reality,” he said. “It’s a cry for art and poetry and the sensitive side of human nature. It is for people who suffer for their feelings.”

This story was originally published January 14, 2015 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Blanche, Stanley find their singing voices in ‘Streetcar’."