2h 30min | Music | Episode aired 25 January 2019
A priest comes under suspicion for abusing a boy at his parish school. This opera is adapted from the same Pulitzer Prize winning 2005 play as Doubt (2008), each written by this librettist.
Director: Kevin Newbury
Conductor: Christopher Franklin
Composer: Douglas J. Cuomo
Writer: John Patrick Shanley (libretto)
Stars: Christine Brewer, Denyce Graves, Matthew Worth, Adriana Zabala.
I love this. The music fits the subject, and the use of disciplined opera singers to portray these people is also a great fit.
Love the plot twists and the ease of understanding the language (although I'm grateful for the subtitles.)
Rated (none; I just added this to IMDb)
Minnesota Opera, cond. Franklin; 8+
PG-13 | 1h 44min | Drama, Mystery | 25 December 2008
A Catholic school principal questions a priest's ambiguous relationship with a troubled young student.
Writer/Director: John Patrick Shanley
Stars: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis.
Watched online, ok print.
I rated the 6 on 2015-05-07. Very oddly, I only remembered MS's disdain over ballpoint pens (preferring fountain pens to foster good penmanship), and not the suspicion of child molestation.
This is the same story/characters/plot twists as the opera. Some more details are included here (spoken word is faster than sung word), but nothing that I'd wished were in the opera, with the exception of perhaps 1 line from the mother.
The lower rating is all due to the choice of PSH. He makes me suspicious immediately, and the confrontation between him and MS is too broad. In the opera, it's very measured and disciplined; no one is yelling. They yell in the film. I find the suspected priest in the opera far more neutral, and therefore more suspenseful.
Good job to the author for the improvements in 2018. Disc on order for the c.track by Shanley.
Rated 7.5 (112,049)
distr. Miramax, dir. Shanley; 7
