‘Ashoka’s Dream’ Is American

We don’t, in the West, have much experience with kings like Ashoka Maurya. A ferocious warrior in the 3rd century BC, Ashoka conquered all of India. But instead of the usual napoleonic instance of power so terribly corrupting, Ashoka underwent in battle a profound transformation of character. He renounced worldly goods, preached the pacifist teachings of Buddha and turned his attention to developing laws of justice and to building schools, libraries and hospitals for his great kingdom.

But however little we actually know the likes of Ashoka in our history, we nonetheless recognize him on the opera stage. Perhaps opera’s single most meaningful contribution to civilization is its ability to uniquely convey the feeling of just such a monumental personal conversion. Mozart and Wagner did it best, but they are hardly alone. American opera has some of its very foundations in such conversions, from St. Teresa’s vision in Virgil Thomson’s “Four Saints in Three Acts” to Philip Glass’ “Satyagraha” (in which Gandhi channels his anger into nonviolence).

“Ashoka’s Dream,” the new opera by Peter Lieberson, given its premiere Saturday night by Santa Fe Opera, follows this tradition closely. It is a work of American imagination, not Indian history.

Need I say that Lieberson and his librettist, Douglas Penick, are American Buddhists? Probably. Ashoka’s facts come mainly from the remarkable edicts promoting an enlightened society that he had carved into pillars. But Penick has made Ashoka’s life a theater of inner conflicts and struggles with society that we are meant to recognize in ourselves.

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And Lieberson has given Ashoka an American voice. A composer with impeccable New York credentials--he is the son of legendary record producer Goddard Lieberson and ballerina Vera Zorina, grew up surrounded by the likes of Copland, Bernstein and Stravinsky and studied with Milton Babbitt--Lieberson combines the more complex uptown academic style of his training with a feel for the more open sonorities and syncopated dance rhythms that we have come to think of as traditionally American.

It is a style that has become more personal, colorful and approachable during the past two decades in a series of increasingly vivid works that attempt to convey the pageantry and compassion of Buddhist or Tibetan legend and thought.

“Ashoka’s Dream,” Lieberson’s first opera, is both splashy and stirring in its revealing of the majesty of its storytelling. The colors of the orchestra dazzle with the sonorities of great bell-like, all-encompassing chords, with rich lyrical passages and with martial orchestral conflagrations.

There is a passage in the second act, in which agitated ministers in Ashoka’s court cannot comprehend their king’s new compassion, that is written for percussion alone, with the ministers speaking their parts. It is a terrific moment of theater, the percussion sounding both archaic and modern at the same instance. It is music in which one feels the force of progress and senses not only its power but also the scariness of change.

Lieberson has also written music of great compassion for Ashoka’s two wives--Lakshmi, who tries to awaken love in the early, angry Ashoka, and the ambitious Triraksha, who struggles unsuccessfully to understand Ashoka’s conversion. Ashoka’s music is the most beautiful of all, and it is an inspiration to watch the complexities fall away from it as his wisdom grows.

Santa Fe Opera has followed suit with a beautiful production and a first-rate cast. It is easy to see ancient India in the spectacular looming relief of figures from Indian legend that Thomas Lynch has made for the set. It blocks the desert behind the open-air stage, and opens in the end for Ashoka to ascend to the stars. The lively fabrics of Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes have the glorious colors of ancient India but also of a Santa Fe sunset. Director Stephen Wadsworth follows the lead of the libretto in balancing a kind of ancient poetic solemnity with modern expressionistic drama. Magical elements (Air, Fire, Water and Earth are personified and form a kind of ancient chorus) are like Indian dancers in the background.

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Baritone Kurt Ollmann is Ashoka; mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt, Triraksha. They are among the most impressive of the new generation of American singing actors, and Lieberson clearly wrote with their dramatic and vocal powers in mind. Strong too are soprano Clare Gormley (Lakshmi), baritone Greer Grimsley (Cankya, Ashoka’s prime minister and confidant, who cannot follow the king’s new path), tenor Mark Thomsen (Ashoka’s friend Girika the charioteer) and booming bass Paul Kreider (the Sage).

But this is not really a singer’s opera. Lieberson’s vocal writing, perhaps hindered by a singing style still grounded in 19th century Europe, does not rise above the ordinary, and transcendence is best in the hands of the orchestra, which was splendidly conducted by Richard Bradshaw.

* “Ashoka’s Dream” has additional performances Wednesday and Aug. 8, 9 p.m., at Santa Fe Opera, Santa Fe, N.M. $20-$112. (800) 280-4654.