Linda McInerney

THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY, a new folk opera by Paula M. Kimper adapted from the novel by Thornton Wilder is an investigation into the lives of five people who are suddenly killed when a bridge collapses into a deep gorge in the Peruvian Andes of 1714. It has resonance with other events that we have born witness to when innocents are taken without seeming sense. The Danbury (CT) NewsTimes called Paula’s orchestral suite of Bridge, “emotional and evocative…the overall effect was spellbinding.” This opera is the latest composition of the composer of The Captivation of Eunice Williams which is presently in preproduction for a Macedonian production in that country.
The Bridge of San Luis Rey will be presented in a workshop production at the Eric Carle Picturebook Museum in Amherst, MA for two nights on October 25, 26, 2007 at 8:00 PM. For tickets call the Northampton Box Office at: 1.800.the.tick or visit www.nbotickets.com
Kimper’s music has been called:
“A warm welcome to Patience & Sarah…Lincoln Center Festival’s Patience & Sarah is a rare—and moving—opera about women in love.” —New York Magazine
“At the end of the third act, there was a soaring affirmation in this music of the transcendent beauty of life and love. Members of the audience—men and women—jumped to their feet and screamed. That’s not impressive merely because a woman composed it; that’s just good opera.” —The New York Times
“Kimper’s music recalls Gian Carlo Menotti in its conservatism and Richard Strauss in its soaring vocal lines.” —USA Today“Reminiscent of Copland and Barber…the lyrical score bristles with impressionistic touches as well as unabashedly romantic flourishes.” —Opera News
Thornton Wilder’s second novel, THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY, was published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. The plot is deceptively simple: On July 20, 1714, “the finest bridge in all Peru” collapses and five people die. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan missionary, happens to witness the tragedy, and as a result, he asks the central question of the novel: “Why did this happen to those five?” He sets out to explore the lives of the five victims, and to understand why they died. Ironically, his quest will lead to his own death.
In later years, when someone asked Thornton Wilder about his purpose in writing THE BRIDGE, he replied that he was posing a question: “Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual’s own will?”
THE BRIDGE received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, was translated into many languages, and established Wilder’s reputation in “the front rank of living novelists. In 1998 it was selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century. The book was quoted by Tony Blair during the memorial service for victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001. Richard Lacayo in his review of the best 100 books for Time Magazine about Bridge, “In 1714, ‘the finest bridge in all Peru’ collapses and five people plunge to their deaths. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan missionary, decides to track down their individual stories to prove that even what seem to be random misfortunes are consistent with God’s plan. That his discoveries turn out to be more complex will come as no surprise. What may surprise are the beguilements of Wilder’s teasing, ironic, beautifully written tale, unlike anything else in American fiction.”

And this is Paula’s recent review of the orchestral suite of Bridge that was just performed in CT.

Music
May 11 2007 9:02 AM
Premiere highlights Community Orchestra concert
By Jan Stribula
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS-TIMES
DANBURY — The Danbury Community Orchestra gave the world premiere performance of a suite from “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” last Sunday and it was breathtaking.

Composed by Paula M. Kimper (b. 1956), the performance was at Ives Concert Hall at WestConn. Kimper and Steven Michael Smith, music director and conductor of the Danbury Community Orchestra, nearly brought the house down in their collaboration. Kimper had been working closely with Smith and the orchestra earlier in the week, fine tuning the suite which was derived in part from her opera.

Kimper’s composition was based on Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel set in the Peruvian Andes, involving a quest for meaning in the lives and deaths of people who perished when a rope bridge they were crossing failed. (In an interesting coincidence, on Tuesday The New York Times featured an article about similar suspension bridges, citing Wilder’s book.)

The wind chimes and flutes playing against droning strings created a sense of high altitude eeriness in the opening bars, with trumpets building up to the snapping cables and perilous descent. The solemn story unfolded with melodic majesty through the use of interesting orchestration including piano, woodwinds, and percussion. Emotional and evocative, the suite blended Spanish flavors with diverse thematic imagery. The overall effect was spellbinding.