Rape, murder, adultery, violence, homosexual tendencies, and Jesus Christ—Once again, USC Thornton Opera, spearheaded by stage director Ken Cazan and conducted by Brent McMunn, turned the stage, as well as the audience’s expectations, upside down last week in the West Coast premiere of Lowell Lieberman and J.D. McClatchy’s Miss Lonelyhearts, which is co-produced by USC, the Juilliard School, and Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.

“This is the darkest and most violent piece that I have ever done,” said Cazan. “I have done so many contemporary operas, and this is certainly one of the ones that has moved me the most.”

A thought-provoking adaptation of Nathanael West’s 1932 novella, this tragic opera tells the story of the drunken and sexually confused Miss Lonelyhearts, who answers the letters from his “desperate” and “sick-of-it-all” writers in his major big-city newspaper column. With a self-proclaimed “Christ complex,” Miss Lonelyhearts’ failed attempts at helping everyone ultimately both elevates and destroys him.

“It has had a lot of controversy within the cast itself, because people are having a hard time spiritually due to the opera’s controversial religious content,” admits Cazan.

Musically, Miss Lonelyhearts is an amalgamation of jazzy atonality and multimedia experimentation (thanks to the USC School of Cinematic Arts). Against the layers of contrasting musical styles, the talented performers must sing piercing-high coloratura and enormous tenor outbursts. If not anything else, Miss Lonelyhearts showcases the stunning talent bursting from the vocal department of the Thornton School of Music.

“It’s just so theatrical and so contemporary and so real,” said Cazan. “It’s like watching a movie with music, and that—I think—is where opera is headed.”

Commissioned for the Julliard School’s centennial, Lowell Lieberman explicitly wrote the complex piece for the young voices training at the elite conservatory. In order to express the emotional intensity of the subject matter through voice, Cazan and McMunn work with the students on creating “one giant, emotional instrument.”

“That is what I ask of the students as performers—to stretch themselves, to take risks, and to go way outside their comfort zones, because that is what is going to make them the most exceptional, the most well-prepared performers in the world,” said Cazan.

From sexual intercourse above the sheets to fellatio out in the open, Cazan does not shy away from being sexually explicit in order to spark interest from the audience and keep them talking about it long after the curtain has closed.

“Opera as an art form was never intended to be easy to watch,” said Cazan. “There is not a minute where your senses should not be assaulted. That is what it’s all about. That is what we do.”

Danielle Jacoby