_{Cover Image: Freeze Frame Opera’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Image by John Marshall, Terrific Pictures.}

When interviewed in 2012 about the origins of his 1998 opera commission with San Francisco Opera, André Previn admitted when he was offered the opportunity to adapt Tennessee Williams’ acclaimed 1947 play, A Streetcar Named Desire, he told the SFO Intendant to “hang up slowly, because that’s the time it will take me to sign [the contract]”.

Previn’s impressive opera debut was widely praised by audience and critics alike, though some reviews debated whether the lush and gorgeous string-laden score matched the raw power of Williams’ original text. One might argue however, that opera is perhaps the most ideal medium for a writer like Williams. His play texts are inherently poetic; they can be brutal, yes, but also beautiful. There is ample beauty and brutality in Previn’s score also, with the musical material arguably fleshing out the psychological territory of the drama for the listener very effectively.

With the stripped back and see-through set in the peeling wallpapered walls and exposed rafters of the Liberty theatre, the audience front row is basically the fourth wall. Characters bathe, dress, undress, drink, smoke, embrace, and fight in close proximity to us with see-through walls and gauze-like curtains. It’s raw and visceral, and at times uncomfortably voyeuristic. The closeness is an effective dramatic device utilised by director Matthew Barclay as we come to understand the literal and figurative hellish claustrophobia that develops between the cramped occupants of the ironically named Elysian Fields.

The instrumental ensemble sits upstage left and exposed just enough to the audience to make them seem like characters themselves in the crowded huddle of Stella and Stanley Kowalski’s tiny two room urban tenement. Tommaso Pollio is an expressive and musically muscular presence, leading and providing the key dynamic shifts clearly and with intricate understanding of the music drama. Pollio performed the mammoth task of arranging this mighty orchestral score into one for just 4 players: himself on piano, an expressive Craig Pederson playing trumpet, Geoff Bourgault impressively playing both E and B flat clarinets as well as an occasionally suggestive alto saxophone, along with an always sensitive Sophie Curtis playing cello.

The percussive punch of the piano renders the score less lush than the original string heavy orchestral, giving the music an added urgency and angularity. This suits the style of the show well, and delivery by the singers is less measured and more immediate as a result. There are moments where less is more, such as key instances where Curtis underpins expressive moments of the singer’s text col legno (with the wood of her bow on the string) and snap pizzicato. These were some of my favourite arrangement decisions, among many.

The pacing is taut, with many sensible cuts for this pared back production. Large surtitles and brief stage directions are projected onto the wall stage left, so no text is lost, and the action ensues very clearly.

The singing is uniformly outstanding. The truly big sing of the opera is Blanche Dubois, a formidable lyric soprano role requiring both vocal strength and agility, along with keen dramatic instincts and flexibility. Harriet Marshall is heartbreaking in moments as Blanche, shining bright in bravura moments when she relays her familial torments to her sister, and as she recalls her first husband’s suicide, to Mitch. These were powerfully rendered, confronting scenes, and her gradual slide into desperation is skilfully delivered and inherently moving.

Prue Sanders is a perfect Stella, with a bell-like and sweet soprano, her brief arioso moments of lyricism are beautifully engaging. Sanders is deft, graceful and lovely as Stella, even as she is systematically thrown about the stage by Stanley and verbally chastened by Blanche. Lachlann Higgins delivers a nuanced and multi-faceted dramatic portrayal of Stanley alongside a powerful and skilled musical performance, with rich and often highly appealing pops of baritone colour. Sanders and Higgins work wonderfully well together, they have excellent stage chemistry, and their physicality as performers is natural, alluring, and believable.

Kohsei Gilkes as Mitch is a vocal highlight of the evening, stealing his own piece of the limelight with his brief but impressive aria, and he is eminently likable on stage; much like the affectively gentle and youthful enthusiasm of Euan MacMillan’s cherry-soda-drinking paper Collector. Caitlin Cassidy as Eunice is only given a tiny slice of the vocal action primarily at the conclusion, but shines as she inevitably does, grounding the action with her chocolatey mezzo and providing great foil to Sanders’ Stella in her moments of anguish. The remaining ensemble including Cassidy are all highly effective in their brief dramatic interactions, doubling as stagehands and extras where needed.

Like the 2025 production of Dead Man Walking, this production of Streetcar certainly highlights maturity and the fruits of the artistic risk-taking spirit that FFO has been cultivating for some time.  Long may it continue to flourish.

Freeze Frame Opera