Lizzie Borden

Americans love a murder mystery story. Take as examples the numerous successful television series centered on murder and justice: Shonda Rhimes’s How to Get Away with Murder, Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story and American Crime Story series, and the ever-running Law & Order and its spinoffs. Before them came the true story of Lizzie Borden, immortalized in a children’s rhyme and still sparking intrigue today. Jack Beeson and Kenward Elmslie set her story to song; for, as Allan Kozinn of the New York Times says, “If there’s one art form in which murderous psychopaths really shine, it’s opera.”

Did Lizzie really kill her father and stepmother? In this opera, the answer is yes. Lizzie Borden isn’t a “whodunit” so much as a “why-do-it?” Beeson himself explains, “The spine of the opera is a series of intermittent scenes of ever-increasing intensity in which Lizzie’s wishes and desires are denied, each deprivation leading her further into fantasy and madness.” She is not independently wealthy, nor does she have any romantic prospects. Her former-housemaid-turned-stepmother Abigail now holds her father Andrew’s purse strings. Andrew has distanced himself from the church since his remarriage, largely closing off Lizzie’s only social outlet. After helping her younger sister Margret elope with a traveling sea captain, Lizzie feels her life has reached a dead end, and the only way out is through murder. [Play clip?]

Allan Kozinn described the score as a “free-spirited musical language” in his review of New York City Opera’s 1999 production. He recalls, “Mr. Beeson’s score, regarded as on the edge of atonality in 1965, sounds eclectic and mild today. There are declamatory, angular gestures that give some of the vocal lines an Expressionistic accent, but there are also hymn tunes and flights of lyricism.” Elmslie’s libretto isn’t a period piece either; he writes “plain-spoken characters” that speak in “the natural-sounding flow of American-flavored dialogue,” according to Larry Wallach of Hudson-Housatonic Arts.

The opera’s premiere in 1965 came on the heels of major federal legislation expanding rights for women. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 made it illegal for employers to pay women less for the same jobs as men. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 furthered workplace protections by banning discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sex and establishing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Nevertheless, the call for “equal pay for equal work” continues to this day. The latest figures from the Pew Research Center indicate that American women make on average 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. The opera’s conclusion suggests, however, that money is not the solution nor the path to a freer life for Lizzie. After inheriting her father’s estate, Lizzie is able to resume her contributions to the church, but her donation gets returned. She is cleared of wrongdoing in the eyes of the law, but not in the eyes of her community. Wealth is not enough to break the stigma surrounding her.

Though the opera does not pathologize or diagnose Lizzie, the opera fits within current conversations about mental health and wellbeing. Like Lizzie, many Americans were trapped at home with limited social interaction during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that in 2021, 57.8 million Americans – that’s more than 1 in 5 Americans – lived with a mental illness. Lizzie Borden provides opportunity for discussion and community outreach as we return to the opera house and to public life.