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A war hero returns home after nine years in captivity to find his country, his family, and his values all turned tragically upside-down. It’s a story suited to the outsized emotions of opera, but it’s not a plot from Puccini, or Verdi, or even Monteverdi: It’s a contemporary American opera. “Glory Denied” opens the Finger Lakes Opera Festival’s summer season on July 19.
The company’s choice of this opera grew from FLO’s desire for a thoughtful way to observe America’s 250th birthday, says FLO artistic director Stephanie Havey.
“We wanted to do an American piece that would honor our history, and also acknowledge the complexity of this moment in history, and of American history in general,” she says.
FLO found just what it wanted in “Glory Denied,” with music by Tom Cipullo and author Tom Philpott, based on Philpott’s book about Col. James Thompson, the United States’ longest-held prisoner of war, held in Vietnam from 1964 to 1973.
Thompson’s story did have the makings of operatic drama, set as it was against the history of a country undergoing violent changes of its own. Cipullo recalls that he was intrigued by “Glory Denied” as soon as he read a New York Times review of the book.
“I ordered it and read it,” he says, “and immediately contacted Tom Philpott about collaborating.”
Tom Cipullo may be a new name to many local opera lovers, but he is well-known among singers as a prolific, award-winning composer of vocal music. FLO’s production will be the latest of the more than 40 productions that “Glory Denied” has received since its 2007 premiere. The opera has been widely praised for its relentless emotional tension; Cipullo’s music is sometimes appropriately jagged and dissonant, but also nostalgic and lyrical as the characters recall the past.
“Most of the tunes come in the second act,” he jokes. Cipullo counts among his musical inspirations such lyrical composers as Puccini, Schumann, and Britten—and, “as an Italian American whose father was a jazz musician,” the singing of Frank Sinatra.
An honest, harrowing look at the changes wrought in the U.S. during the Vietnam War, “Glory Denied” focuses on Thompson, haunted by his torture and isolation after nine years as a POW in Hanoi, and the results of his absence on his wife, Alyce, and their four children. (In the opera, this tumultuous story is told with only four characters, playing young and older versions of Jim and Alyce.)
Thompson was definitely a hero, but he returned to America in 1973, at a time when public sentiment had turned against the Vietnam War.
“Returning soldiers were not treated as heroes; they were spat on, sworn at, called murderers and baby killers,” recalls Cipullo.
In addition, Alyce had had her husband legally declared dead, and in order to provide their four children with a regular home life, moved out of state and lived with another man.
Thompson’s sacrifice was eventually recognized; he received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1982 and a Prisoner of War Medal in 1988, among other honors. But he was a broken man; emotional distress and alcoholism had taken its toll, and he lived alone in a small apartment in Florida, dying in 2002.
“Jim Thompson was a man with 1950s patriotic values who came back to America during the 1970s and was undone by all the political and social changes he saw,” Stephanie Havey, who is directing “Glory Denied.”
“Some of Jim’s and Alyce’s actions are difficult to defend,” says Havey, pointing out Alyce’s abandonment of her husband. “Many men who’ve seen ‘Glory Denied’ will say, ‘I can’t believe she did what she did.’ But many women will say, “I think I see why she did that.’
“I hope the opera can help provide some context for the characters’ actions, to help show everything these people went through,” adds Havey. “My hope is that the audience will find empathy with all the characters, and understanding and empathy for all our veterans. We don’t have to agree with them politically, but we do have to recognize them as people.”
A feature of some productions of “Glory Denied” has been post-performance discussions sponsored by veteran centers. One will take place after FLO’s performance with guests from Rochester’s Veteran’s Outreach Center, which is co-sponsoring the show.
Cipullo says he has been involved in several of these for “Glory Denied,” and the audiences often include veterans and former POWs sharing their traumatic experiences, sometimes for the first time. (The composer adds that Thompson’s children have also seen his opera and found worthy of his memory.)
Performing the marathon role of Jim Thompson for FLO is baritone Ben Edquist, a U.S. Air Force sergeant, who was highly praised in two previous productions of “Glory Denied.”
“Ben is phenomenal, as good an actor as he is a singer,” says Cipullo. When Havey is asked if she had Edquist in mind from the beginning, she replies simply, “Yes!”
A few years ago, Edquist’s career was rising, with a starring role in the musical “Anastasia” and upcoming opera assignments. But with the pandemic “everything stopped, and the contracts were not renewed,” he says. “That was my big, big, big reason for joining the Air Force; I needed to make a more solid base for myself and my wife.”
Edquist says that as a member of the USAF’s Singing Sergeants, his singing career is now “Air Force first,” but he receives 30 days’ leave each year for other singing jobs. “‘Glory Denied’ will be the first full operatic production I’ve taken part in since I joined.”
Has Edquist’s military experience informed his performances in “Glory Denied”? He thinks it’s too early in his service to tell. “But there is one scene in the opera in which Col. Thompson remembers keeping sane by building a house, detail by detail, in his mind. That’s something I heard about during training for living as a POW.
“The role is extremely demanding and requires a great emotional range,” he adds, singling out a manic scene in which Thompson runs through the myriad changes in America during his absence, from the Beatles to Teflon to “men with long hair and women with short hair.”
“The score’s rhythmically very complicated, with lots of crazy time signature changes,” he adds. “It’s challenging—to learn and for the audience—but Tom’s music is so well suited to the words that it sticks to you.”
“I did a crazy thing with this opera,” says Cipullo. “I just wrote it, without a commission. Now, Rule No. 1 for composers is, ‘Never write a note without a commission!’” Now, the lucky composer says, “I tell my students, ‘Go where it’s warm.’ If an idea calls you and feel you have to do it, do it!”
“Glory Denied” begins a lively summer season for Finger Lakes Opera. “Happy End,” a zany “missionary-meets-mobsters” satire with memorable songs by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, is a joint touring production of FLO, Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Saratoga, and the Seagle Festival, coming on July 23. The festive finale will be the greatest of comic operas, and FLO’s first mainstage production of Mozart, “The Marriage of Figaro,” in August.
Finger Lakes Opera presents “Glory Denied” on Sunday, July 19, at 2 p.m. The performance will be followed by a talk-back with Tom Cipullo, FLO cast and creative staff, and Veterans Outreach Center staff.
FLO’s other presentations this summer are “Happy End” on Thursday, July 23, at 7 p.m.; and “The Marriage of Figaro,” Thursday, Aug. 6, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 9, at 2 p.m. All FLO productions are at Robert F. Panara Theatre at RIT/NTID, 52 Lomb Memorial Dr. Tickets and information at fingerlakesopera.org or 585-450-3880.
David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer.
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