Joshua Hopkins reviews
Jake Heggie: Songs for Murdered Sisters
Joshua Hopkins (baritone), Jake Heggie (piano) (Pentatone)
Massenet: Thaïs
Erin Wall, Joshua Hopkins et al; Toronto Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis
(Chandos)
Heggie: It’s a Wonderful Life with the Houston Grand Opera and Chorus
It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t only the title of the 1946 Frank Capra movie regularly placed in Christmas TV schedules to spread good cheer and a fuzzy sense of community spirit. Since December 2016 it’s also been an opera, premiered and co-commissioned by Houston Grand Opera from Jake Heggie and his regular librettist Gene Scheer. One change from the film is immediately obvious: the charmingly whimsical guardian angel trying to prevent the suicide of the ordinary, good small-town citizen George Bailey has had a sex change.