Since I had to miss the last performance given by the Collegiate Chorale — a critically lauded "Maid of Orleans" starring Dolora Zajick at Carnegie Hall — I made sure to catch its latest offering, a concert staging of the 1985 one act opera version of the Grimm faerie tale "The Juniper Tree," with a score by Philip Glass and Robert Moran, and video projections of illustrations by Maurice Sendak. The piece is divided into six scenes, three written by each composer. The story is simple but gruesome: a wealthy landowner's first wife eats juniper berries during pregnancy, then dies during childbirth. Years later, his second wife becomes jealous of the first-born son and kills him, then guilts her daughter into believing she's the murderer. Finally, after the dead son is cooked into a stew and eaten by the unknowing father, his bones are buried beneath the juniper tree that marks his mother's grave. The tree bursts into flames and a bird emerges, the reborn spirit of the murdered boy. The bird drops a millstone on his stepmother, killing her. Then he comes back to life and lives happily ever after with his father and step-sister. Awww. Think of the possibilites for a fully staged production.
