12 january | February 2015

y day, Georgia Bottoms is the perfect Southern belle in Six Points, Alabama. She dutifully attends church, cares for her mama, and quilts. Once night settles around the front porch, the sweet lady known for her cooking and quilting turns into a sly businesswoman who entertains a different man every night and somehow manages to keep each one in the dark. She masterfully juggles both roles until Preacher Eugene Hendrix decides to confess their affair in front of the entire congregation. What’s a lady to do?

With wit, wisdom, and a healthy dose of wry humor, Mark Childress writes about Georgia’s quest to save her reputation before her mama finds out. Thanks to a collaboration with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, the novel takes the stage this February in the form of a comic opera. The typically sad opera stage transforms with this clever production sure to tickle your funny bone.

“The topic is funny; it has situational comedy moments,” says conductor Gregory Vajda of comic opera. “What makes it an opera are references to the music; certain sounds are used as a reference. Comedy comes from timing, and in music it’s the same as standup

comedy—timing and pace is everything.” Vajda composed the score and collaborated with

Childress to write the libretto. “I first got the idea for this book when I heard an

interview on NPR with the author, Mark Childress,” he says. “It has a strong female character and interesting supporting characters that can be put into music but not too many that would cause the audience confusion.”

Crafting an opera out of prose is no small undertaking. All the action takes place in a single space instead of sprinkled around Six Points. Vajda and company opted for minimal staging to let the music and characters shine.

“I was looking for a Southern topic,” Vajda says of what initially drew him to Georgia herself. “American opera composer Carlisle Floyd often wrote about the South. Stories about the South come up often in American operas because drama is happening here—extreme historical circumstances are taking place. From an opera point of view, the South is the most interesting.”

For more information and showtimes, visit hso.org.

T e xT by L au r e n M o r i a rT y

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