Stephen King completionists and fans of offbeat horror adaptations at large get a rare treat during the quarantine, with the Minnesota Opera streaming an audio recording of its 2016 production of The Shining, a critically acclaimed original inspired by King’s novel.
The audacious mashup enjoyed a sold-out run during its two-week run at St. Paul’s Ordway Theater, but until now that was the only chance to see it. While the Minnesota Opera has its current shows on hold during the pandemic, they’re streaming a series of recordings throughout the spring and summer, leading off with this new horror classic now through July 5.
The show stars Brian Mulligan as the unraveling hotel caretaker Jack Torrance, dynamite soprano Kelly Kaduce as his besieged wife Wendy, Alejandro Vega as their son Danny, and Arthur Woodleu as kindly hotel employee Dick Halloran.
King’s blue-collar American gothic may seem a strange fit for the opera, yet the story of The Shining is essentially operatic. Jack is a classical tragic figure, drawn by dark fate into a losing struggle against his alcoholic rages. His increasingly mad soliloquies are the stuff arias are made of—these songs just happen to involve more ghosts and croquet mallets. And there’s more horror in classical opera that you might expect: the killer clowns of Puccini’s Pagliaci and and Verdi’s Rigoletto, the ghosts of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Philip Glass’ Fall of the House of Usher. (And this isn’t even the first opera adapted from King; the San Francisco Opera produced Dolores Claiborne back in 2013.)
Librettist Mark Campbell, working with composer Paul Moravec, is definitively working from King’s novel. Unfortunately the free audio stream doesn’t account for the elaborate production design, which borrowed flourishes from the Stanley Kubrick film adaptation, and featured a brilliant take on the Overlook’s ghostly residents, who were represented by a combination of light projections and live performers that makes for the show’s biggest (and scariest) surprise right before the intermission break.
If you’re a King fan but wary of potentially inaccessible opera, give it a shot. This Shining a modern production, in English, and let’s face it—you already know the story beat-for-beat. Opera, being sung almost entirely throughout, is actually less jarring than musicals where characters spontaneously break out into song during dialogue, and Moravec’s score is beautiful and unnerving. At one showing back in 2016, horror fandom was well represented, with plenty of fantastic goth prom getups among the usual suit-and-gown opera set. Put on your fanciest funeral gown, turn down the lights, and give it a listen here (or down below).
And if it intrigues you, the Minnesota Opera is scheduled to present another production of the show next year, from May 15-23, so you can get a look at that gorgeous set design in person.
https://soundcloud.com/user-664824498/the-shining