To most people, a night at the opera sounds like a pompous, lengthy affair. The typical three-hour show is a daunting time commitment to most modern audiences. However, in 1959, Samuel Barber collaborated with librettist Gian Carlo Menotti to create one of the most popular micro-operas in history, spanning only nine minutes: A Hand of Bridge. The show opens with a group of four people playing cards. The cast includes two couples: Sally and Bill, playing against Geraldine and David. The entire opera is comprised of a single scene, in which each character sings an arietta. Though only about ten minutes long, the opera quickly brings the characters to life as they confess their distractions in each arietta. This inner dialogue soon reveals the characters’ complicated relationships. The opera opens with a jazzy theme representing the game itself, recurring between ariettas to bind together the disjointed thoughts of the characters. From the very beginning the music is notably dissonant, hinting at the tension between the players.
Each character sings an opening line about the cards they are playing. Sally leads with five hearts and begins the inner dialogue: “I wish to buy that hat of peacock feathers.” Her abrupt thought sets a comical tone of oblivion, as she is not concerned with the game, nor with her partner, but is obsessed with the hat of peacock feathers. This thought is conveyed with short repeated notes that haunt the listener and emphasize the obsession that Sally has with the hat. The haunting dissonant repetition could also convey the aggravation Sally causes with her pursuit of material happiness, without much thought to anyone else. Sally’s arietta is entirely self-focused and is the only one not to mention another player. As the inner dialogues of other characters unfold, however, it becomes clear that Sally’s obsession may actually be a form of escapism from an unhappy marriage. Her arietta ends abruptly, returning to the musical theme of the game, as she instructs her husband, Bill, to draw from the table.
This statement turns us to Bill’s arietta, which focuses on his mistress, Cymbaline. He begins by questioning whether Sally has found out about his affair, though he dismisses that thought quickly in favor of pleasant memories of Cymbaline. Here, the music shifts into a lyrical waltz as Bill fantasizes about her. Though his thoughts are driven by lust, the music indicates that his love for Cymbaline is purer than the disturbingly long list of partners with whom she may be spending the night. As he pines, wondering in Shakespearian fashion where Cymbaline is, a lovely, consonant waltzing melody begins, echoing the sweet simplicity of the typical lover’s song. However, when his thoughts turn to darker lust, the music shifts back into an uneasy dissonance. A spark of truer love returns with the waltz melody as he wishes that he and Cymbaline were married, and that she was his bridge partner. As his arietta comes to a close, Sally’s theme joins in, emphasizing the disconnect between the couple. Once Bill’s arietta ends, Sally’s theme is sung twice more, before she recalls herself and Bill to the game, exclaiming that he has trumped the Queen. With her exclamation, the jazzy theme of the game returns and acts as an interlude before Geraldine’s arietta.
Geraldine opens with an observation of how distracted Bill is, questioning which lover is on his mind, since it cannot be his wife, nor Geraldine herself, as he is no longer paying attention to either of them. This opening not only further reveals the flaws of Bill’s character, but also the state of Geraldine and David’s marriage. She goes on to lament that no one is left to love her, besides her dying mother with whom she has a strained relationship. Here again, the music shifts dramatically, as the rhythm slows and the accompaniment fades. It swells with her emotions as she faces the thought of her mother’s approaching death, then hushes to a whisper as she simply pleads for her not to die yet: “Let me see your pleading eyes once more now that, at last, I am learning to love you.” Geraldine’s prayer is the emotional highpoint of the opera. All notes are suspended momentarily as her words linger in the air, before being interrupted by a brief reprise of both Bill’s and Sally’s ariettas.
Finally, after another interlude of the jazzy game theme, David begins the last arietta. The ariettas fall in order of drama, beginning with Sally’s simple wish for a new hat, and ending with the arrogant, outlandish fantasies of David. Though not as emotional as Geraldine’s theme, David’s inner dialogue presents the most passionate and dramatic music of the show. As he complains about his mundane life of working under a despised boss and playing bridge every night with the same people, he becomes lost in his impassioned daydream of a fantasy life, full of lavish riches. The music becomes gradually louder as his imaginings become increasingly bombastic and perverted. It takes on a notably foreign sound, mimicking eastern music as he envisions himself with the wealth of the maharaja, becoming known as the “Sultan of America” with “an alabaster palace in Palm Beach.” His arietta continues with delusions of perverted grandeur, rocking between tritones as he fantasizes about being surrounded by male and female prostitutes attending to his every whim. Intertwined throughout David’s arietta are echoes of Bill and Sally’s themes, tying together the disjointed, selfish dialogue of the three characters. As his arietta comes to a close, David sings of his ultimate goal: to be feared. With this statement regarding fear, Geraldine’s theme finally returns with another simple plea for her mother not to die. At last, David begins to awake from his daydream, confronting the reality that he will never be so wealthy, and even if he was, he would continue with his mundane life, trapped in an endless cycle of complacent habit.
With this conclusion, Sally, Bill, and Geraldine each sing a final reprise of their ariettas, before the show closes with the jazzy theme of the game, as David ends the hand with the trump. In approximately nine minutes, the complex relationships of suburban American couples are dissected and a complete musical story is told. It wasn’t until 1999, forty years after the original premier of A Hand of Bridge, that a sequel was commissioned, and the story reopened by Mark Adamo in his micro-opera Avow.
Avow, like A Hand of Bridge, follows the inner dialogue of a bride and groom in another single-scene comedic opera. The cast includes the bride (Joan) and groom (Sebastian), the bride’s mother, an officiant, and the ghost of the groom’s father. Avow is more comedic than A Hand of Bridge, including many humorous lines in the music, especially from the overly excited mother of the bride who is oblivious to any problems between the happy couple. She is the first character heard, reading her daughter’s wedding announcement in the paper. The music opens with the familiar tune of the Bridal March, creating a typically consonant setting for the rest of the opera, as opposed to the dissonance of A Hand of Bridge. Just as the dissonance in A Hand of Bridge emphasized the disconnection between the characters, the consonance in Avow emphasizes the ultimate connection between the characters. Though the show follows the tension of a conflicted bride and groom just before their wedding, it does not emphasize any tension between them. The couple continually confesses the same fears and apprehensions in their duet. Despite the conflict over whether they will follow through with the wedding, the couple is of the same line of thinking, even finishing each other’s subconscious sentences. This unity of thought is reflected in the consonance of their duet.
As the show progresses, the couple continues to wrestle through their doubts individually, each developing reasons why they should not get married. Sebastian’s tension culminates with a visitation from his father’s ghost, David from A Hand of Bridge. While the lyrics of Avow do not directly indicate, since the arietta is questioning why his father stayed with his mother, it would be fairly safe to assume that Sebastian is the son of David and Geraldine, who were already a middle-aged couple in A Hand of Bridge. Perhaps he is even the “football son” whom Geraldine laments does not love her. As Sebastian confronts his fear of marriage, he angrily recounts the unhappy marriage of his parents that he vowed he would never replicate. David’s ghost responds in his own arietta, which recalls the musical ideas and lyrics of his original arietta in A Hand of Bridge. He tells of how he dealt with his troubled marriage by fantasizing another life but knew deep down he could never leave his family, no matter how unhappy he was: “You married: you stayed. Your bed was made. Those were the rules.” Ultimately, he concludes that he did not leave because his family became his home.
Finally, the big moment arrives as the couple approaches the altar, and their final decisions must be made. As they gaze at one another, they sing a duet of their mutual doubts, but ultimately agree that it is worth facing their fears to fight for their love. They vow not to repeat history and pray a blessing over their marriage as the celebrant pronounces them man and wife. The pleasant consonant melody of the duet stops with the suspension of a cadence as the eager mother of the bride interrupts to get the last word: “Reception to follow.” The opera then concludes with a satisfying and hopeful resolution.
While both A Hand of Bridge and Avow are comedic micro-operas, the music differs greatly between them. This difference is primarily driven by one factor: hope. A Hand of Bridge is a comedy about unhappy domestic couples, but it is ultimately a tragedy of characters biding the time of their broken lives in a mundane cycle, attempting to distract themselves. Contrastingly, Avow is a comedy of a young couple facing the fear of becoming like those couples before them, but ultimately choosing to fight for love and hope despite the fear. The uneasy, dissonant music of A Hand of Bridge leaves listeners with only the disjointed themes to remember, while the fluid consonance of Avow leaves listeners happy with the overarching musical progression of the show.