Col. Floyd J. Thompson

Last night I finished Glory Denied, the book that my upcoming opera is based on.  It is the completely tragic story of "Jim" Thompson, the longest held prisoner of war in American history.   He was held for just under nine years after his plane was shot down.

The book is written primarily as an oral history and it is almost entirely written as direct quotations from Tom Philpott's extensive interviews with Thompson, his family and friends and from source military documents.

As a singer and actor, a resource like this book is an incredible resource.  While it strips out much of the imagination based work that is required for older operas, it adds many details that can be incorporated into my work.

The opera distills down three key themes from the book: Jim's time as a prisoner of war, Alyce's methods of survival during that time and Jim's deteriorating relationship with Alyce following his return.

In previous posts, I outlined my process for learning a role.  Applying it to this opera has been fascinating because the opera doesn't rely on a definite narrative structure.  Additionally, the show has four actors, two men who perform the role of Jim and two women who perform the role of Alyce.  While the baritone plays an older version, I play a younger, idealized version of Jim that is experiencing the horrors of war first hand and has not yet experienced the second tragedy of losing his family.