By CAROLYN BROWN
Staff Writer
Two dark moments in Northampton history – the 1806 execution of two innocent immigrants and the 1960 arrest of a closeted Smith College professor – have an unlikely connection: an upcoming event will explore them both in opera.
William Hite, left, and Bryan Pollock, as Newton Arvin and Truman Capote, respectively, in the 2017 production of “The Scarlet Professor” by Harley Erdman and Eric Sawyer at Smith College. PHOTO BY JON CRISPIN
Historic Northampton will put on “Northampton Stories: From the Operas of Sawyer & Erdman” at their Shepherd’s Barn venue on Friday, June 6, at 7 p.m., and Saturday, June 7, at 2 and 7 p.m. The show will include vocalists Katherine Saik DeLugan, William Hite, Ann Moss, Keith Phares, and Alan Schneider, and each show will be heard for the first time since its premiere. Each show will also have a talkback afterwards.
The event will feature six selections each from two operas by Eric Sawyer and Harley Erdman: “The Garden of Martyrs,” based on a novel about the 1806 trial and execution of Irish Catholic immigrants Dominic Daley and James Halligan, who were falsely accused of murder; and “The Scarlet Professor,” based on a book about Smith College professor Newton Arvin, a closeted gay man, who was arrested at his Northampton apartment in 1960 for possessing gay erotica.
“The music is vivid, lush, and soaring,” said a press release, “and the issues are more relevant now than ever.”
What made both stories well-suited to become operas, librettist Harley Erdman said, was that they both “deal with individuals who dealt with uncertainty, doubt and hesitation as they faced public shaming and scorn in very high stakes situations. They had agonizing decisions to make. This makes for stories that ‘want to sing.’”
Daley and Halligan were arrested for the 1805 murder of Marcus Lyon, a young man who was robbed and killed on the turnpike in Wilbraham while traveling to Connecticut. Their trial, which took place in June 1806 in Northampton, was anything but fair: the two were only provided with legal counsel two days before the trial, whereas the state’s lawyers had months to prepare, and none of the witnesses (including the 13-year-old boy who became the trial’s de facto chief witness) testified that they had seen the men commit the murder – only that they had seen the men (or men who looked like them) circumstantially near the area where the body was found. Daley and Halligan were also unable to testify. They were sentenced to death by hanging in Northampton.
From left, Blythe Gassiert (as Hester Prynne), William Hite (as Newton Arvin) and James Demler (as Sgt. John Regan) in the 2017 production of “The Scarlet Professor” by Harley Erdman and Eric Sawyer at Smith College. PHOTO BY JON CRISPIN
Historians generally agree that the two men were essentially guaranteed to lose well before they were even tried: they were Irish Catholic immigrants in a time of widespread anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment. A report of their deaths in the Hampshire Federalist said, “Notwithstanding their protestations of innocence, in which they persisted to the last, it is believed that of the 15,000 persons supposed to have been present at the execution, scarcely one had a doubt of their guilt.”
In 1984, then-Gov. Dukakis issued a proclamation declaring March 18 of that year “Dominic Daley and James Halligan Memorial Day,” exonerating the two men and exhorting the people of Massachusetts to “affirm their resolve not to allow fear, intolerance or prejudice to operate to the detriment for [sic] their fellow citizens.”
Composer Eric Sawyer said that as soon as he and Erdman first learned the Daley and Halligan story in depth, they realized it had “a lot of operatic potential.” After all, he said, their story – one of “the tensions around newcomers coming into the country and how the established residents received them and the suspicion and tragedy that can arise from a kind of hysteria around nativism” – has “been with us since the founding of the country.”
Erdman and Sawyer premiered “The Garden of Martyrs” in 2013 at the Academy of Music, where it received a standing ovation.
“The Scarlet Professor,” which premiered in 2017, is based on the life-upending apartment raid and subsequent arrest of Newton Arvin, a Smith College professor otherwise known for biographies of literary figures like Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Arvin was romantically involved with Truman Capote for three years.
From left, Vernon Hartman (as Attorney General Sullivan), William Hite (as Father Cheverus) and Alan Schneider (as Dominic Daley) in the 2013 production of “The Garden of Martyrs” by Harley Erdman and Eric Sawyer at the Academy of Music. PHOTO BY JON CRISPIN
In 1960, police raided Arvin’s apartment and arrested him for possessing “beefcake” erotica and a gay civil rights organization’s newsletter. The shame and harsh reactions he received from his community left him so troubled that he checked himself into a state mental hospital for a month.
Much of the opera draws from the themes of the novel “The Scarlet Letter,” connecting Arvin’s fixation on the book to his own neuroses about shame and secrecy. In one scene, Arvin imagines Hester Prynne on trial, with Sergeant John Regan of the Massachusetts State Police – the man whose investigation led to Arvin’s arrest – taunting her as she stands in the pillory. She returns later, and Arvin admonishes the crowd:
“People of New England / Ye that deem certain acts unholy / Ye that despise certain ways of the heart / Ye that would brand some human behavior / With the scourge of a scarlet letter – / Behold me now – / A man no less and no more sinful than any of you / I stand upon the spot where years ago I should have stood, here with this woman / Join me here now, Hester Prynne!”
To a modern Northampton audience, the notion of a respected adult losing his social standing, job, and mental health for privately owning photos of consenting nude (or partially clothed) men is absurd and horrifying. Still, as Sawyer pointed out, Massachusetts itself was founded by Puritans, and if someone “didn’t fit into the moral framework, one was held in suspicion. Freethinkers and people with alternative lifestyles of various kinds have always had a rough time in New England, even now.”
“It’s not that far that we have to look back to find a story like ‘The Scarlet Professor,’ ” he said.
From left, Keith Phares (as James Halligan), Alan Schneider (as Dominic Daley), and William Hite (as Father Cheverus) in the 2013 production of “The Garden of Martyrs” by Harley Erdman and Eric Sawyer at the Academy of Music. PHOTO BY JON CRISPIN
Erdman said that the stories are “more relevant today than they were when the operas debuted, not long ago,” due to the current political climate.
“I do think it’s good to be reminded that this haven could be very intolerant,” he added. “And that we’ve come a long way. And maybe still have a long way to go.”
One of Sawyer’s big takeaways from the creation process for both operas was an understanding of how close to home these tragedies were – as he pointed out, he and Erdman worked on the pieces just down the street from where Daley, Halligan, and Arvin each met their respective doom.
“Being able to see the place that you’re in with a new lens, with a historical lens, is fascinating, and I hope people will come away feeling that resonance and awe for how a place has evolved,” he said, “and I hope they’ll find the stories interesting and compelling as well for the present moment. I think they certainly give us a lot of food for thought.”
General admission tickets are $15 to $25, sliding scale, via historicnorthampton.org/programs.html. Card to Culture tickets are also available for $10. (Note: each show can only accommodate 45 people.)
Carolyn Brown can be reached at cbrown@gazettenet.com.
