The lights have just gone up for intermission at the opening night of San Francisco Opera’s long-awaited production of The Handmaid’s Tale. As people begin to rise and excitedly chatter about what we’ve just witnessed, the woman next to me turns to her companion and sighs.
“Well,” she says, “this is unrelentingly bleak.”
Anyone familiar with The Handmaid’s Tale will tell you that is certainly a fair assessment. This is, after all, the story of a woman violently torn from her family and forced into a life of sexual servitude by a theocratic regime. America is no more, replaced by the Republic of Gilead, whose leaders attempt to solve an infertility crisis by forcing fertile women to reproduce with the commanding elite. These “handmaids,” living with their assigned commanders’ families, are considered disposable vessels, unworthy of even retaining their own names. The woman at the center of The Handmaid’s Tale is known only as Offred — literally “of Fred,” the commander she’s been assigned to.
Running through Oct. 1 at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, composer Poul Ruders’ and librettist Paul Bentley’s interpretation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel is a faithful yet incredibly innovative rendering of the original story. For opera attendees stepping into this patriarchal dystopia for the first time, however, the shock may be significant. (The “unrelentingly bleak” lady couldn’t possibly have known how much darker things were going to get in the second act.)
Consider, for example, the scene in which two women have hoods thrown over their heads and are hung by their necks from the rafters. Or the one in which a man is beaten to death in slow motion by a group of handmaids. Or the two in which Offred is ritually raped by Commander Fred while a shocking refrain of “Amazing Grace” plays in the background. Another, depicting the violent breakup of Offred’s family, made the man in front of me jump out of his seat. Directed by John Fulljames, The Handmaid’s Tale opera — like the book and enormously popular Hulu series — is not for the faint of heart.
The lifeblood of this particular production is Irene Roberts as Offred. The mezzo-soprano’s heartrending vocal delivery is matched by a grueling physical performance in which Roberts must endure physical groping by several male cast members, dressing and undressing repeatedly (including the removal of underwear), as well as running, crouching and falling to the floor. Roberts’ performance here is consistently astonishing — the reason all eyes stayed glued to the stage throughout, even during the most harrowing of scenes.
The other wonderful aspect of this particular Handmaid’s Tale is the on-stage juxtaposition of Offred’s current reality in Gilead with the life she lived before. Pre-Gilead Offred is played with a compelling naïveté by Simone McIntosh. This Offred, in her regular clothes, free to watch TV and read magazines and make love to her husband, is a shadow lurking in the background throughout the opera, as Offred mentally hangs onto the shreds of her previous life. It’s a staging quirk that could easily have failed with the wrong casting, but that’s an incredibly effective device in this production.
Truthfully, nothing about The Handmaid’s Tale opera slouches. Sarah Cambidge’s purposefully piercing vocals make her the perfect Aunt Lydia, the dominating woman who does her best to indoctrinate the handmaids. Caroline Corrales as Offred’s best friend Moira provides a true sense of liberty and rebellion, audaciously delivering much-needed zingers throughout. And Commander Fred’s presence is all the more intimidating because of John Relyea’s deep bass delivery. This strong cast is upheld by the baton of Karen Kamensek, conducting the orchestra.
Then there are the sets. Chloe Lamford’s designs evoke the prison state of Gilead via a series of stark and striking walls. A symbolic wall with an ever-watchful eye. The corrugated walls of the handmaid’s training compound. The stark white wall where traitors are hung. The layered, somehow infinite walls of the Commander’s house. The automated “Soul Scrolls” prayer wall, dinging away like Las Vegas slots. The sense of ceaseless confinement persists throughout, as it did in Atwood’s novel.
The only place where this Handmaid’s Tale goes wrong is in a pandering (and a little confusing) tableau that gets plopped onto the stage in the last minute of the opera. This moment features a self-conscious attempt to leave things on an optimistic note. They shouldn’t have bothered. The Handmaid’s Tale is always, in all formats, at its most powerful when it’s, well, unrelentingly bleak.
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ runs through Oct. 1, 2024, at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Details and tickets here.
The opera will be livestreamed on Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Livestream tickets here.
