Colum McCann: ‘Diane Foley's story was inherently dramatic – mother meets son's killer, then forgives him – and I was interested in the challenge of writing a libretto'

Irish Times

14 hours ago

About 20 minutes into
American Mother
, a new opera by the Irish writer
Colum McCann
and the British composer Charlotte Bray, there's a heart-stopping image. A man with a shaved head, kneeling in an orange jumpsuit, is lowered into view. No words or music are needed.
It evokes the last moments of
James Foley
, before he was beheaded by
Islamic State
extremists in Syria in 2014. The sight of the journalist in the jumpsuit, which comes from his filmed execution, ranks alongside the 9/11 attacks as one of the most recognisable, and shocking, images of the 21st century.
Eight years later Jim's mother,
Diane Foley
, entered a high-security prison in Virginia, in the United States, to meet
Alexanda Kotey
, one of the men now serving eight life sentences for their roles in the terrible end of her son and others in Islamic State captivity.
The opera, which premiered this month in the German city of Hagen, is based on the book of the same name that McCann wrote with Diane Foley last year. Telling her remarkable story, the book has been praised around the world as a staggering exercise in empathy and forgiveness.
READ MORE
The stage adaptation was an unlikely and daring collaboration for McCann. Opera was never his thing, says the writer, who is based in the US, but he decided to have a go writing his first libretto after being approached by Bray.
'I knew Diane's story was inherently dramatic – mother meets son's killer, then forgives him – and I was interested in the challenge of writing a libretto,' he says. 'I thought of it as an epic or semi-epic poem. And the more I got involved the more powerful this seemed to me. I felt the story fit the [opera] form.'
The curtain rises on a sparse stage set – bed, mirror, table, clothes on hangars – and Bray's prologue. An uneasy musical psychogram disturbs and draws in the audience with high strings, ghostly woodwinds and dreamily ominous bells. Within five minutes Bray has painted a soundscape of loss – one maintained masterfully for 80 minutes by the Theater Hagen orchestra.
[
Eight years after James Foley's murder by Isis, his mother sat down with his captor. Why?
Opens in new window
]
Bray's main score has traces of Mark-Anthony Turnage, while her creepy underscoring rivals that of the German-born Hollywood master Franz Waxman.
Author Colum McCann and Diane Foley, mother of the late war journalist James Foley. Photograph: Joel Sagat/AFP via Getty Images
The composer says she first became interested in – and appalled by – Syria's civil war after writing a cello sonata about Islamic State's destruction of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra a decade ago. Then she learned of Jim Foley's life, did a deep dive and heard from Diane Foley about the upcoming book.
'It's incredibly meaningful that this story has touched so many people, but as a new story now it is touching people in a different way,' Bray says. 'It's a universal story about forgiveness and how Diane could summon the courage to forgive someone who did that.'
Bray says having McCann come on board was a 'gift'. Foley agrees. Bray's approach to turn her son's life and death into an opera shocked, she says, but she was reassured by McCann's role as librettist.
'Colum did a brilliant job,' says Foley, who will attend a performance with McCann on Wednesday, June 18th. 'I hope the opera helps us seek to understand one another and try to forgive ourselves – and others.'
The show is carried on the shoulders of two strong leads. The US-born mezzo-soprano
Katharine Goeldner
says she faced three challenges as Diane: a complex score she was studying until the afternoon of the premiere, on June 1st; the effort to stand still for much of the evening, as directed; and the task of playing a living person who had gone through hell.
'It's a privilege and honour but also a responsibility,' Goeldner says. 'I can't be her onstage. Instead what I try to do is challenge her emotions and give voice to that. I still worry about whether I get more angry than she would approve of.'
[
American Mother: The many questions behind James Foley's killing
Opens in new window
]
The real Foley kept her anger, sadness, ambivalence and misgivings tight inside her – and the book. The fictionalised Foley has mood swings, from cool poise to the kind of emotional confrontations crucial for a stage drama.
They give the evening even more heft alongside the Ballymena-born baritone
Timothy Connor
, whose Kotey – the British-born man now serving eight consecutive life sentences for Isis-related kidnap, torture and killings – is gripping, visually and physically, coming across as a mix of a Tom Hardy-style hard man; Stanley Kowalski, from A Streetcar Named Desire; and
Andrew Tate
, the social-media influencer accused of rape, bodily harm and human trafficking.
American Mother: Dong-Won Seo, Roman Payer, Timothy Connor and Katharine Goeldner in the opera by Charlotte Bray and Colum McCann. Photograph: Volker Beushausen/Theater Hagen
Even in ankle chains, Connor's character is a restless, prowling panther waiting to pounce. The singer is so gripping to watch that, at times, there is a real danger that the focus, unlike in the book, will shift from the grieving mother to the perpetrator.
The 37-year-old singer says that creating the stage character was an even greater challenge than that of creating
J Robert Oppenheimer
in the John Adams opera Dr Atomic.
'Of course Kotey is an awful human being who has done terrible things, but I wanted to show some kind of inner struggle and vulnerability, not Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter,' he says. 'We're telling an allegory of redemption, we're not showing a Netflix documentary, so I could put a lot of me into him.'
Bray's score creates a filmic atmosphere 'of giant swells, with a chain of thought in the background', he says.
Steering the actors and orchestra with a sure hand from the orchestra pit is music director
Joseph Trafton
. 'This was deeply challenging but ultimately rewarding, because they have written such a tight story,' he says.
An opera commission of this ambition in a regional venue such as Hagen's has surprised Germany's stage world. As the premiere approached, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper described Theater Hagen as the 'wonder of Westphalia'. Friends of the house know better: it has been turning out high-quality productions for many years, and O'Connor and McCann are not the first Irish creatives to pass this way. The award-winning Longford-born choreographer
Marguerite Donlon
attracted audiences here from all over Germany for her productions.
US freelance reporter James Foley in a room at the airport of Sirte, Libya, on September 29th, 2011. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP
At American Mother's premiere, after 80 tense and challenging minutes, the audience was on its feet – a rarity for Germany. Reviews were enthusiastic, too, praising the strong performances and Travis Preston's tight direction in 'an outstanding opera evening'. 'Charlotte Bray has written an impressive opera that is as touching as it is thoughtful,' one critic concluded.
In their book McCann and Foley write that to know the how of a loved one's death is to better know the loved one's life, to more fully love the loved one and keep that life alive.
Long after American Mother vanishes from bookstore shelves, the emotional possibilities of opera give new life to Jim Foley's terrible death and meaningful life. For McCann, the opera is another chance to spread Jim's mission of moral courage and understanding across divisions.
'In an increasingly narrow world,' he says, 'her son's vision continues to act as an antidote to the political and social myopia.'
American Mother is at
Theater Hagen
on Wednesday, June 18th, and Friday, June 27th