Cold Sassy Tree - The Opera?
Mar 20, 2008 Music, Thoughts, me
In high school, I read a book called “Cold Sassy Tree“. Maybe you have heard of it. The story takes place in a small suthun‘ town in Georgia at the turn of the 20th century. If any story gives you a good picture of southern life 100 years ago, this is it. It really is a great book, and it is one of the few required books I read in school that I would actually want to read again.
A few weeks ago, I went with my mother to the Opera version of that story. That’s right, Cold Sassy Tree - the opera. It was interesting to say the least. You know how in the opera, everything is sung, well, opera-like? That’s how this was, only with a southern accent thrown in.
The best way I can describe it is this. Imagine doing your impression of a British accent. Then, with that British accent, do your impression of a Russian accent. It’s sort of a double accent.
That is how it is to hear an opera singer sing an opera, but in a southern accent. Hard to explain, hard to comprehend.
The opera itself was pretty good. They only did part of the book, and in all honesty, it got boring very quickly. We ended up leaving halfway through it. It was getting late, and we were both getting bored with the slow pace of the storytelling.
But still, if you get a chance to see an opera version of a southern story, give it a try. It’s just an odd thing to hear.
Tags: cold sassy tree, novel, olive ann burns, opera, southern, story
