Stage Notes: Calling: An Opera of Forgiveness

Calling: An Opera of Forgiveness, conceived and directed by Wickham Boyle, and adapted from her book, A Mother’s Essays from Ground Zero, with an electro-acoustic score by Douglas Geers, is about the experience of one Tribeca family on 9/11, and the month immediately following it. I have known Wickham Boyle for 20 years. She used to be the program director at La Mama, and has written about the downtown scene for various newspapers for 15 years. She is a long-time Tribeca resident, where she lives with her husband and two children.

Hi Wicky, what have you done here?
It was originally my family, my story, my book; but the interesting thing about art is that it transforms a story to make it more universal.

Why an opera? I’ve known you as a theater person.
A lot of people have asked, “Why an opera?” because I came out of La Mama theater and experimentalism. The reason is, is that I feel that opera deals with things that are iconic or mythical. And I wanted to do that. Not to be glib, but one could not imagine “9/11, the Musical.” It is a huge moment in our history and it deserves a serious focus.

The book came out in January, 2002. It was a project, used as a fundraiser for the schools that were closed downtown after 9/11. Every single penny of the book’s sales, and of other people’s projects too, went to the schools.

OK, so tell me about the show and what happens.
It’s very personal. On that morning, I was in the loft, ten blocks from the Trade Center. The kids were in school. Afterwards, I went and got the kids from school and took them home, and brought some of their friends with them. We live right on the cusp of where people could stay or leave. We had a family meeting that night. My husband and I, our 16-year-old girl (she’s now 23) and our 13-year-old boy, and we decided to stay in Tribeca. So then we started to work. We unloaded trucks, we carried supplies. I cooked with Daniel Boulez and served food at the site.

That must have been something.
We gradually tried to figure our lives out again. The kids had no school to go to. My husband is a consultant; he couldn’t travel. But we knew our challenge was a small challenge compared to others.

Is there a theme to the opera?
The notion, the essence, of The Calling is the challenge of “How to move forward.” And one of the skills of moving forward is forgiveness. We have to forgive ourselves in order to move forward.

Besides your family, how many other characters are there?
There are 12 people in the show. There’s a variety of workers, teachers, other children. All of the workers step forward and sing what they did.

What is the play’s time line?
From 9/11 till one month later, when there is some change, a reconciliation in the main character, the mother, so that she can move forward. How she interacts with everybody around her is the whole opera.

Anything else you’d like to say?
I hope to stress how small the story is. It’s just one family’s story. I don’t intend it to be anything else. The hope is that by making things smaller, we let people put on it whatever they need to put on it.

La Mama, E.T.C., 74-A E. 4th St., (212) 475-7710. Sept. 12-28. Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m. $20, 25.

From left to right, Wikham Boyle; bass baritone Roland Burks with soprano Nicole Tori