Charlie Parker’s Yardbird at Seattle Opera

It was a miracle I made it to see Charlie Parker’s Yardbird at Seattle Opera at all. First of all, black operas are rarely performed by major opera companies. I didn’t have advance tickets, and on opening weekend I was home sick with a flu-like virus. I got mixed up the next weekend and showed up on the day that there wasn’t a matinee (big oof). But I finally made it for the very last performance of the run – only a few days before all big arts performances were shut down due to the pandemic. So was it worth all that effort?

Yes and no.  

Charlie Parker’s Yardbird

Charlie Parker’s Yardbird is the story of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, told mostly through the eyes of the women who loved him – his mother; three of his wives: Rebecca, Doris, and Chan; and music patroness Nica.

Set to a libretto by poet/playwright Bridgette Wimberly, the opera is set during the days that Charlie Parker’s body lay, misidentified, in the morgue. During those days, Parker’s ghost attempts to fulfill a dream he couldn’t complete in life – to write music for a full orchestra. During this time, we are shown episodic scenes of his life from his teen years in Kansas City through his development as a musician, heroin addiction and mental breakdown in California, and his relationship with several of his wives.

Things I Liked

Frederick Ballentine

If you’re talking about the performances in Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, you have to start with Frederick Ballentine’s Charlie. I first heard Ballentine as Don Jose in 2019’s Carmen. He was a last-minute replacement who performed on opening night with only two days of rehearsal. You wouldn’t have known it to hear him, though. The sweetness of his “Flower Song” made me yearn to hear him sing a character I didn’t hate. Charlie Parker in real life was no angel, but as a genius artist, I could at least appreciate him as a character.

On stage for all but a few minutes of the opera’s hour and a half, intermissionless run time, it’s fair to call to call the performance a tour de force. Unfortunately, this particular English language score didn’t give him as much opportunity to do the kind of singing I most wanted to hear. But there was a different kind of delight in hearing an opera tenor scat. And the high notes he reached during the final song were every bit as transcendent as his “Flower Song.” I could have spent the entire evening listening to those last minutes of the opera.

The Ending

Seriously, what an ending. That soaring final solo may not be an appropriate ending for every story, but I wish it was. No grand finale chorus has ever been as moving as Parker’s farewell to the world in Yardbird.

Poetry

Bridgette Wimberly’s poetry is exquisite. Even though the opera was sung in English and generally easy to understand, I paid close attention to the supertitles because I didn’t want to miss a word. She uses language so beautifully, filling the libretto with recurring metaphors of birds, cages, and flight to represent both musical elements and aspects of Parker’s life. I would happily buy this libretto as a chapbook, because the individual poems hold up completely separate from the music.  

The Other Performances

Charlie Parker was the main character, but Charlie Parker’s Yardbird is a story about women. Operas with bigger casts tend to have one woman per voice type. But Yardbird lays the sopranos on thick, providing an incredible variety of voice types within the range.

Mezzo Audrey Babcock’s Nica sounds nothing like mezzo Chrystal E. Williams’ Rebecca. Soprano Jennifer Cross as his religious wife Doris was sweet and bell-like. Soprano Shelly Traverse as Chan was sultry and sophisticated – a far cry from the quavering Hero I saw in Beatrice and Benedick. And soprano Angela Brown as Charlie Parker’s mother threatened to steal the show every time she took the stage with her powerful Tosca-like voice. So often in opera the fear is that the orchestra will drown out the singer. Brown’s voice could overwhelm the orchestra.

Baritone Jorell Williams as Dizzie Gillespie was a welcome respite from all the high voices, and I could have used a lot more of him. In the opera, Gillespie was both a musical partner who played off of Parker’s unpredictable inventiveness and a friend who knew when to stop playing. It was a wonderful dynamic that I hope was true in real life.

Dance

I knew that ballet was originally an ornament to opera before becoming a respected art form in its own right. But nowadays we don’t see a lot of dance in opera. Last year I wondered where I first became familiar with choreographer Donald Byrd, and now I realize it might have been at Seattle Opera – he did choreography for 2015’s Semele. And now he’s choreographed a piece for a long instrumental section of music during Yardbird’s asylum scene.

A part of me is sad that Ballentine didn’t get a chance to do a classic mad scene like the women of bel canto. But since Parker was a real person who lived fairly recently (on the day I accidentally showed up for a non-performance I met an elderly woman who did the same thing. She was not an opera fan, but was interested because she had personally met Parker in her youth) I can understand the decision not to put words in his mouth for that moment in his life. And as always, Byrd’s jerky, twisty choreography to communicate his breakdown was brilliant.

Things I Didn’t Like

Bassless

The lowest voice in the opera was a baritone, and he didn’t appear until 45 minutes into a 90-minute opera. It’s just a matter of taste, but I like the low notes, and I didn’t get enough of them.

 (Un)Set(tling)

Usually it goes without saying that the sets at Seattle Opera are amazing. But I was a little disappointed by Yardbird. The presence or absence of a gurney was the only clue as to whether a scene took place in the morgue or in the titular nightclub. The set changed a bit for the Camarillo mental hospital, but not for any of the other scenes from Parker’s life. I could never really tell if we were supposed to be watching flashbacks or memories. Was life getting in the way of Parker’s composition even in death? Or were these memories the subject matter of his orchestral composition? Maybe it doesn’t really matter, but it was a bit of confusion that pulled me out of the story instead of reinforcing it.

Framing

That was especially problematic because the structure of the opera didn’t ground the viewer very strongly in the story in the first place. As much as I loved the poetry, it wasn’t really narrative poetry like Don Juan or Rhime of the Ancient Mariner. Epic narratives like that rarely achieve the poetic quality of the songs in Yardbird. I’m not sure that a more structured libretto would be worth the trade-off in poetic quality. But maybe more recitativo would help orient the viewer. Or maybe there’s a way to strengthen the frame without tweaking the libretto. I’m not sure, but the current pastiche approach didn’t quite click for me.

Overall Impression

Individually, nearly every element of Charlie Parker’s Yardbird sang. Combined, they just didn’t really seem to hang together. But then again, I don’t really get jazz. The deficiency might be mine. To jazz aficionados, Yardbird might feel like an amazing 90-minute jam. It’s entirely possible that Yardbird does exactly what it’s meant to, and I’m not sophisticated enough to get it.

So, did I enjoy Yardbird as much as I expected? No.

Am I glad I saw it? Yes.

Would I see it again? Absolutely.

I have come to love several operas that didn’t do much for me the first time I saw them. That scene in Pretty Woman about either immediately loving opera or never really connecting with it sounds good in a movie, but it’s just not true. Growing knowledge and sophistication as a viewer absolutely can lead to more than just an academic appreciation. And I’m willing to bet another ticket that an older, wiser me could love Yardbird next time around.

Cast

Charlie Parker 
Joshua Stewart* (Feb. 22 & 26 | Mar. 1 & 6)
Frederick Ballentine (Feb. 23 & 29 | Mar. 4 & 7)

Addie Parker     
Angela Brown*

Dizzie Gillespie
Jorell Williams*

Chan Parker 
Shelly Traverse

Doris Parker
Jennifer Cross

Rebecca Parker 
Chrystal E. Williams*

Nica
Audrey Babcock 

Conductor 
Kelly Kuo* 

Director   
Ron Daniels*

Scenic Designer
Riccardo Hernandez*

Costume Designer
Emily Rebholz*

Lighting Designer
Scott Zielinski*

Choreographer 
Donald Byrd

*Mainstage Debut

Opera Details

Charlie Parker’s Yardbird
Music by Daniel Schnyder
Libretto by Bridgette A. Wimberly
In English with English captions
Premiere: Perelman Theater, Philadelphia, June 5, 2015
Seattle Opera premiere
Marion Oliver McCaw Hall
Performances: Feb. 22, 23, 26, 29; Mar. 1, 4, 6, & 7, 2020
Approximate Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission