(Credit Photo: Erin Baiano)

Scott Davenport Richards and David Cote’s “Blind Injustice” came to New York City this past week, taking the stage of Jazz at Lincoln Center for two performances on Feb. 3 and 4 presented by MasterVoices.

The work follows the Ohio Innocence Project’s efforts to overturn the convictions of six men, women, and teens who were wrongly imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. It’s a work with its heart in the right place (which makes writing this review so challenging), but unfortunately packaged in all the wrong ways to gets its message across. I emphasize the word “message,” because instead of taking on a theme, questioning and exploring its different layers and nuance, to arrive at some epiphany or new idea, the piece is rather simplistic in what it wants to say to the audience and how aggressively it says it.

One-Sided Argument

The opera’s opening aria for the prosecutor is essentially a proclamation that criminals are just “bad guys” who are defective, sick, broken, and diseased. He caps his big aria by repeating “I will always win!” to which the chorus repeats “He will always win!”

Following this proclamation, another more experienced lawyer comes on stage to point out that he used to be “that guy” and that experience has taught him that the core of the issue is the justice system, going so far as to elegantly refer to the lies it propagates as “bullshit.” “It’s about politics. Judges are elected, Prosecutors are elected, and They have this tough on crime demeanor. They develop this reflex where They have to act like hard-asses, no matter what,” he monologues.

Then we get the prosecutors chumming up to each other in a piece where they repeat “Getting the job done” (the libretto has 20 instances of that phrase printed) and “Justice” ad nauseum, as they each narrate their sleazy tactics to “get the job done.” A few instances later, we’ll get an entire number dedicated to the flaws of forensic science. In that instance, like in this one with the prosecutors, the use of language is so simplistic and repetitive, the music bouncy and light hearted, that it becomes clear that the intention is to portray all of the legal system as one big circus. A big joke.

To make matters worse, following the prosecutors’ “Getting the job done,”  the defense attorney immediately says “I do innocence work: Innocent people wrongfully convicted,” leaving no doubt where this is all going. And then we launch into the story of Nancy.

Before we get into the six stories at the heart of the opera, it is essential to note that this whole introduction is the first major misstep of the opera for several reasons. It is a clear attempt at some semblance of philosophical conflict, but because of how it is presented without nuance or grey areas, it comes off as heavy-handed. Fifteen minutes in, the opera is laying all of its cards on the table and saying “Justice system = flawed, archaic, messy, political.” And for 90 minutes, this message will be repeated again and again every time the lawyers make their return. I have no doubt that the core message of the opera is true, especially given the current chaos in our political and justice system. To that end, telling these stories and taking these stands has never been more vital than it is now. But art shouldn’t be propaganda and to simply brush off any of the nuance in the central conflict undercuts the seriousness of a work on this topic (or on any topic, in general). Moreover, not only is it telling us something most people already know or think, but it isn’t presenting anything new to the conversation. The opera essentially states that the prosecution oversimplifies everything by turning criminality into good guys and bad guys, black and white, but the libretto itself is doing the same exact thing with the overall conflict. To be fair, the opera introduces the character of Alesha, a law student who is undecided on her career path and states that her mother is in defense and her father a prosecutor and that family dinners can be difficult, as a weak attempt to create a moral grey area. But given that she’s immediately associated with the Innocence attorney (he tells us that she’s one of the students he works with), there isn’t really any doubt about where her loyalties will lie and sure enough, she never has any crisis of conscience. She’s just a messenger. The prosecutor gets his moment at the end to question his own beliefs, but he isn’t treated like a tragic figure, but simply a clown for all of the characters to lash out against.

Dropping the lawyers from the opera would fix some issues because it would get us right to the substance of the piece – the stories of the innocents fighting for their lives. But unfortunately, the framing of their stories is also poorly executed.

First off, we are seeing four different stories. Nancy Smith, a school bus driver who is wrongfully convicted of molesting children and imprisoned for 15 years. There’s the “East Cleveland 3,” Laurese Glover, Derrick Wheatt, and Eugene Johnson, teenagers wrongfully convicted of murder, based on the testimony of a young girl. Clarence Elkins, wrongfully convicted of killing and raping his mother-in-law and raping his wife’s niece. And finally, Rickey Jackson, wrongfully convicted of murder and robbery, based on the testimony of a child. All compelling stories. All important stories.

All crowding each other in an opera that can’t do proper justice to a single one of them.

First off, none of them are fully dramatized. Each of the wrongfully convicted narrates his / her story for the audience and then, once in a while, we get a re-enactment of a moment between a mother and her son or a crowd of parents telling their kids to accuse Nancy. It’s akin to a documentary film in its structuring but without narrative tension. There’s also barely any characterization. Nancy, Clarence, Laurese, Eugene, Rickey, and Derrick, all get moments to consider their circumstances, but most of the time they are just telling us the events of their past, not allowing us to truly delve into their feelings. Save for very few instances, we don’t really get to understand the inner lives of these people outside of their feelings of injustice. In fact, one of the standout moments in this regard is a moment where Derrick’s mother expresses her feelings about her son’s situation with a beautiful arioso. The other major moment in this regard is Laurese’s “The Hole,” where he describes his experience in solitary confinement. But otherwise, the emotional exploration is thin.

The overpacking of stories into the opera’s short running time ensures that major dramatic revelations or turns are explained rather than explored. Take Nancy’s case, which was the result of parents wrongfully accusing her so that they could sue the system and get handsomely compensated. It’s evil and has tremendous dramatic potential in its setup, discovery, and aftermath. But Cote and Davenport Richards have the situation explained away by the Innocence lawyer and Nancy, before giving it a bouncy musical number in which the parents dictate what the children have to say (thus reiterating what was already explained and making it redundant instead of revelatory) before moving on to the next bit of narrative. Same goes for the witness to the Jackson case, who just explains how he was instructed to behave by his mother and then explains that he was threatened by the cops. Again, there are brief re-enactments of some of these moments, but rarely are any fully fleshed into actual dramatic scenes. Ultimately, the opera simply doesn’t have the time to substantially explore any of them, instead bent on driving home its message that all of these folks were wrongfully convicted.

As if there was any doubt about the aggressive messaging, the defense attorney ends the opera by proclaiming, “The Ohio Innocence Project has freed 42 people who served a total of more than nine hundred years in prison. We have thousands more cases. We will keep telling their stories.”

Again, the Ohio Innocence Project’s work is essential and doubly important in a time when lots of people are going to be put away and labeled as criminals at the whims of tyrannical rule, but including this in the opera’s text further cheapens the entire work, pushing into the territory of a commercial for the Ohio Innocence Project. It would have been better served in a program note or something to that effect.

Ultimately, in my view, picking one of the four stories as the subject for an entire opera and thus deepening its themes and contradictions, would have done that story and the mission at large the greater service.

As a dramatic writer, you’re often told to “show, don’t tell,” and while this axiom has its flaws, it’s usually a good one to follow. Opera features so much telling in its narration, but the “showing” in the art form is usually a combination of a character’s language and the music that expresses their emotions. As such, any flaws in a libretto can usually be overcome with a solid score. Davenport Richards has limited success in this regard. He attempts to inject the text with irony, especially in how he contrasts the bombast and circus-like swing of the prosecutors / forensic scientists / the evil parents with the slower, more somber, even meditative music that he often gives to the prisoners and defense attorneys. Alesha, the symbol of the future, gets floating lines that ascend constantly to the upper range over the ensemble at the beginning and very end of the opera. Laurese’s “The Hole” is arguably the most memorable aria of the entire opera, ending on a glorious, extended high note.

But unfortunately, the overabundance of stories is the main culprit here and it clearly puts Davenport Richards in a bind as a composer. It would make sense for every story to have its own musical language or character, but then the musical tapestry would likely lack cohesion. While the opera does mix several genres, such as pop, hiphop, and jazz, ultimately, the compromise ends up being slower passages for the exonerated, making their musical language almost homogenous, and most boisterous bounciness for the system and its acolytes. This further divides the opera into its good (the exonerated / innocence lawyer) and silly (the system) dichotomy, furthering the overall predictability and redundancy of the entire work. Any subtle nuance between situations is difficult to track by the listener and the overall lack of dramatic scenes between characters in conflict (a rarity in the work at large) further limits music’s ability to evolve beyond developing a mood. Perhaps the most interesting musical contrast exists between the two lawyers. Whereas the prosecution lawyer is written to be over-the-top and more akin to what we expect from an operatic figure with monumental passages, the defense attorney breaks the fourth wall more directly and has a more personable demeanor to go along with his more relaxed musical vibe.

Musical Power

All that said, the performance side of things wasn’t undermined by any of this. Things got off to a testy start during the Feb. 3 performance, where following the opening number, conductor Ted Sperling raised his hand, turned around, and directed himself to the lighting team to let them know that they had forgotten to turn on his podium light. After a few awkward moments, they turned on the spotlight. He insisted on his podium light. They turned on some of the house lights. Sperling eventually started up the music again, insisting that they turn off the spotlight once they had found his podium light. As the performance ensued, the lighting team turned on every conceivable light until finally, they found what they were looking for and the performance moved along. The soloists were mic’d and there were moments early on where voices would get a bit grainy in the upper reaches, but some equilibrium was eventually found and without other major hiccups.

Sperling’s ensemble was fantastic throughout, and the balance between the soloists and the chorus was solid. The chorus was particularly crisp, with all of their interjections of the text coming through cleanly, particularly during the big ensembles.

The soloists all put in strong shifts. Christian Pursell was potent in his opening aria, his singing thunderous as he proclaimed his credo with confidence, the voice booming into the hall. And he retained this directness throughout every one of his interjections. There was an aggressiveness throughout his performance that matched the authoritarian depiction of the Prosecution lawyer and was neatly counterpointed by Joshua Dennis’ more gentle vocalism. As Alesha, Victoria Okafor’s voice coalesced nicely with Dennis’ to deliver some soaring vocal lines on “Let in the Light” both at the start of the work and then at the end.

As the exonerees, Orson van Gay II was a standout, especially throughout “The Hole,” delivered with a hushed tone and gentle legato. That high note at the end of the passage was sublime and the audience exploded into tremendous applause when he concluded the lengthy note. Miles Wilson-Toliver and Phillip Bullock also delivered strong vocal showings as Eugene and Derrick, respectively. Bullock was particularly compelling in his scene with his mother, his emotional baggage allowed to simmer and develop in their tête à tête.

As Clarence, Thomas Capobianco delivered a potent voice, expressing his character’s desperation. His story gets some more aggressive musical moments, particularly as he pushes back against the cops that initially arrest him or in the jittery climax where he waits for the true murderer to drop a cigarette. Capobianco matched these moments vocally with stentorian timbre and assured top notes.

Eric Shane Heately lent the role of Rickey Jackson with an earthiness that allowed his anger and frustration to rumble and simmer slowly. His interpretation dovetailed nicely with Reilly Nelson’s Nancy, whose delicate soprano, is also in an inner struggle with containing her frustration and letting it explode.

Joseph Parrish, Briana Hunter, and Marc Kudisch took on several roles as part of the ensemble. Kudisch was impressive in his vocal and physical transformations in everything from a lawyer, to a cop, to the murderer Earl Mann, this last transformation particularly notable for his grimier vocal colors. Parrish’s shifts from a naive boy to a religious prisoner were equally striking.

Finally, Hunter delivered one of the opera’s standout moments as Derrick’s mother, her voice beaming over the entire orchestra as she delivered her impassioned vision for the day her son gets to leave, capping it with a potent “Bust this goddamned prison down!” While her words may be valedictory, Hunter’s interpretation expressed the empowerment but also the frustration, the fear, and the pain at the thought that it might not actually happen. It was one of the few moments of the entire night that was full of emotional complexity in how it juxtaposed text with interpretation and expression. It was also a result of one of the few moments in the opera that allowed a scene to breathe and develop its conflict and character interactions.

The staging by Robin Guarino was simple but effective. The six falsely convicted were placed in taped-off chairs across the stage while the lawyers shifted around the space. As they told their narratives, the exonerees were allowed to get up and move about to act out their situations while the others remained in their chairs. The lighting functioned to support these patterns. It allowed the shifting narratives to be easily followed and the spacing and blocking was flexible in allowing the vignettes and re-enactments to shift from one to the next smoothly. It was as precise and solid as the rest of the presentation.

Ultimately, it is important for new works to continue to get their time onstage and I appreciate what “Blind Injustice” is aiming to do. In fact, one might argue that the attempt to tell six stories across one night is a bold structural challenge that must be applauded. And there might be a world where the six stories, even as told, work together. But the framing is where this opera ultimately misses the mark, mistakingly undermining the core of the story and the people who fought for their freedom to deliver a message everyone already knows.