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Page 12___Tuesday, November 9,1999
‘0 Pioneers!’ opera converts prose to lyric
By Josh Nichols
Staff writer
-:-\—— -:
Nineteenth century immigrants who came
to the Great Plains to make new lives struggled
against poverty, disease and an ignorance of the
land and weather conditions-they came to settle.
Renowned Nebraska author Willa Cather
tapped into the struggles and feelings of those
who so desperately worked to settle the vast
plains of the Midwest.
For the First time, one of her full-length sto
ries will be delivered not in writing but in the
form of an opera.
Tyler White, University of Nebraska
. Lincoln director of orchestral activities, has
written his first opera based on Cather’s first
novel set in Nebraska.
Commissioned by the UNL School of
Music, “O Pioneers!” will premiere Friday at 8
p.m. in Kimball Recital Hall
The story is about the Bergsons, a Swedish
immigrant family who came to America to start
a new life on the Great Plains.
The story focuses on Alexandra Bergson,
who becomes head of the family after her father
dies. She develops a love for the beauty and
vastness of the Nebraska plains.
White, an Atlanta native, developed a simi
lar love for the region when he moved to
Manhattan, Kan.,, as a child.
He left the Midwest when he attended col
lege at the University of North Carolina-Chapel
Hill.
“It hit me most strongly when I left for col
lege. There was a physical sense of coming
back,” he said in a press release. “I think Cather
was keenly aware of this.”
White chose to base his opera on the Cather
novel because of the sense he shared with
Cather and because “O Pioneers!” could easily
be adapted to the stage.
The play took him three years to write.
During his first year at UNL in 1994, White
and William Shomos, director of opera at UNL,
discussed doing some new works and decided
that doing a Cather opera “seemed natural.”
Theater Preview i^O
The Facts - • Wu,
What: “0 Pioneers!"
Where: Kimball Hall
When: Friday and Sunday
Cost: $7 for students
The Skinny: First ever opera performance of
famous Nebraskan author’s novel.
White said Cather’s work is easy to under
stand.
“After I read my first Cather novel, ‘Death
Comes to the Archbishop,’ I wondered, ‘Why
doesn’t everyone write like this?”’ White said.
“It’s so simple and easy. I tried to write
music that sounds so simple and easy and yet
like nothing you’ve heard before.”
Converting a novel to a stage presentation
presents challenges because parts of the book
must be cut out.
“Converting any novel requires cutting and
sifting,” he said.
“You have to develop a sense of what can be
cut and what must be left in. You have to decide
whether verbal descriptions in the novel will be
presented visually or musically or omitted.”
Shomos said the opera presents Cather’s
novel well.
“We have the same main characters, and the
stories Cather was telling are told in the opera,”
he said. “It captures the essence of the novel’s
words with music.”
The cast of “0 Pioneers!” consists of gradu
ate and undergraduate UNL music students.
Karen Hughes, a vocal performance gradu
ate student who plays Alexandra, has read the
novel and agreed that the story is presented
well.
“The opera is very true to the novel. That is
what makes it so beautiful,” she said.
“My character is the backbone of the family
who takes over the land they own,” she said.
“Everyone else gives up, but she makes it pros
per.”
Please see PIONEERS on 13
••• •
tv
i.
"The Insider’ and the new face of journalism
Integrity and corporate concerns collide
By Samuel McKewon
Senior staff writer
Not 10 minutes into Michael
Mann’s “The Insider,” CBS “60
Minutes” reporter/icon Mike Wallace
(Christopher Plummer) launches into
a tirade at the notion that someone
might control one of his interviews.
His target of one specific person,
in this case an Arab gunman protect
ing his leader, turns to everyone in the
room. Wallace storms off by himself.
The gunman rescinds his demands.
And quietly, carefully, the “60
Minutes” producer Lowell Bergman
(A1 Pacino) approaches Wallace to
see if he’s “warmed up.”
“I’ve got my heart going now,”
Wallace responds. His big show of
journalistic integrity was just that - a
show.
The moment sets the perfect tone
for the “The Insider” - an unflinching
look at modem journalism. After that,
do we know when Wallace is lying or
telling the truth? When, in another
tirade, he accuses a corporate drone
of strong-arming him, is he, in fact,
strong-arming her? When he cries,
are his tears real? And if Mike
Wallace is an icon in this business,
what does that say about the ethics of
everybody else?
These are the questions this
movie asks. It doesn’t try to answer
them. As a film, it doesn’t have to.
What it must do is create a com
pelling narrative to surround those
questions, and Mann triumphs,
choosing to focus on the trials of
Jeffrey Wiegand (Russell Crowe), a
tobacco whistle-blower whose inter
view with “60 Minutes” was delayed
for more than three months because
of CBS’s corporate concerns.
Wiegand, under pressure from
Big Tobacco not to talk, loses every
thing in the process - his wife (Diane
Venora), money, reputation and free
dom. To top it off, CBS hangs him out
to dry.
And since the “The Insider” is
based on fact, there isn’t any secret as
to how the film ends. The details of
exactly what Wiegand knew about the
tobacco industry are pretty inconse
quential in the movie.
More provocative is Mann’s two
fold approach that shows Wiegand’s
slow spiral into tragedy and
Bergman’s fight to keep the interview
intact.
Of the two stories, the first is
more compelling. Wiegand, a brash,
sometimes compulsive personality, is
played body and soul by Crowe as a
determined, principled man who
refuses to be pushed around.
Both Wiegand the character and
Crowe the actor hold their own in
numerous scenes with Pacino’s
Bergman.
The best scenes of the film con-».
cem Wiegand’s internal conflict over
breaking his tobacco company ’s con
fidentiality agreement by testifying
in the state of Mississippi’s landmark
lawsuit.
The film’s second half shifts to a
behind-the-lies look at the CBS deci
Him Review
TN Facts
Title: "The Insider”
Director: Michael Mann
Rating: R (adult language, situations
and a veiled jab at the Nebraska football
team)
Stars: A! Pacino, Russell Crowe,
Cristopher Plummer, Philip Baker Hall,
Diane Venora
Grade: A
Five Words: “The Insider" definitely
deep-throated
sion, complete with balking executive
producer Don Hewitt (Philip Baker
Hall), lawyers and the shifty Wallace.
(In recent weeks, both Wallace and
Hewitt have denounced the movie.)
Bergman’s battle for the interview,
which turns into a crusade, gets a lit
tle tired by the end. It gets a little old
watching person after person talk on a
cellular phone.
Mann, a master technician, jams
the camera up in everybody’s face, as
Oliver Stone used to, creating an
effect of intimacy rare in a movie this
big.
The director of “Heat” and
“Manhunter” is also a glutton for
detail - watch for jabs at Kenneth
Starr and the Nebraska football team.
Mann’s cinematographer, Dante
Spinotti, has always been superb; the
visuals are crisp and have a full-bod
ied atmosphere to them.
The rest of the supporting cast,
Courtesy Photo
RUSSELL CROWE and Al Pacino star in “The Insider.” The film explores the
consequences of a “60 Minutes” interview with tobacco industry informer
Jeffrey Wigand.
especially Plummer, is excellent. A
scene stealer includes Bruce McGill
as Wiegand’s lawyer in the
Mississippi courthouse.
Pacino adds to the atmosphere
with his mere presence. As in most of
his performances, his work in “The
Insider” includes a few scenes when
he yells THIS LOUD, because it’s
“only the biggest health care reform
issue in U.S. history!”
Understand that the above scene,
along with many others, are only to be
taken quasi-seriously. Mann’s film
offers up the notion of journalism as
self-fulfilling prophecy - it’s news if
the news media says it is, and the
media takes a weightier stand on
things than most of the public might.
Toward the end of “The Insider,” both
Wallace and Bergman step outside
their crusading mode and momentar
ily come to terms with who and what
they are.
“The Insider” provides no con
crete solutions. Sort of like a know-it
all mole deep inside, this movie
reveals the truth previously unknown.
“All the President’s Men” got most of
its thrill in how it utilized the anony
mous insider “Deep Throat.” This
time, we know exactly who Deep
Throat is, and how, unlike the 1970s,
he doesn’t call the shots anymore.
That’s how much journalism has
changed.