The Scarlet Ibis

“Director Elizabeth Margolius, who is active across Chicago’s theatrical scene, could hardly have been more in tune with this story in her brilliant, subtle staging. She was careful not to smother the simplicity of the story as she negotiated the nuanced balance between the opera’s naturalism and fancy. She used stylized slow motion to suggest the suspension of time or reality, as in the aggrieved father’s climbing to his workshop or Doodle’s fatefully rowing across the swamp. The director realized that, by skillfully capitalizing on Magaw’s set and adding just a few props like a wagon or a pair of oars, the audience’s imagination could fill in any other visuals with the help [of] Weisman’s musical imagery. We never see a swamp, and yet we leave the theater absolutely believing we were there and that we experienced the final storm in all its fury. Perhaps most important, Margolius rightly kept the focus on the intimacy of the relationship between the two brothers, managing the fragile balance of love and malice contained within it.”

Kyle MacMillan, Classical Voice North America