Moby Dick Critique

The opera Moby Dick occurred on November 6, 2016, from 2 PM to 5 PM, at the Winspear Opera House in Downtown Dallas. The Dallas Opera performed the event, and famous performers included the following: Jay Hunter Morris as Captain Ahab, Stephen Costello as Greenhorn, Morgan Smith as Starbuck, Musa Ngqungwana as Queequeg, Jacqueline Echols as Pip, and Peter McGillivray as Stubb. The opera performance was completely backed by a professional orchestra, featuring every instrument one would expect in such an accompaniment. These instruments included the violin, cello, drums, viola, and more. Both the orchestra and the singers were guided by a director, although he mainly focused on arranging the orchestra. As mentioned earlier, the important performers …show more content…
This performance differed from others because the overall mastery of the performances stayed at the highest level consistently. The opera truly demonstrated the impressive ability of professional singers to strike high notes, articulate clearly, resonate sound throughout the building, and maintain pitch-perfect quality. The musical pieces that provided the most curiosity to the viewer was any work involving Captain Ahab. Jay Hunter Morris did an incredible job expressing not only the emotions of a maniacally obsessed Captain, but also the complete engagement to direct the energy on stage to the characters. Thus, the music sung by Jay Hunter Morris fills the viewer with incredible intrigue and curiosity to follow the story, even if he already knows the ending from previous experience. Moby Dick will leave any viewer speechless and saddened at the tragic end for nearly all the characters. Because of the emotional investment of time that both the actors and the viewers have spent, they do not want to see the most righteous characters meet an untimely end. This proves that the opera delivered on emotional impact, or else the viewers would not care about the characters at