Nashville Opera to debut distinctly American 'Favorite Son' by Marcus Hummon

If you know the name Marcus Hummon, it’s probably from his successful career as a Grammy-Award-winning songwriter. If you’ve heard “Cowboy Take Me Away” recorded by the Chicks, “Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts or “Born to Fly” by Sara Evans, then you’re familiar with just a few of Hummon’s hit songs.

What you may not know is Hummon’s work far transcends Music Row.

In addition to his roster of hit country songs (including the three No. 1 hits previously mentioned), his creative repertoire includes a children’s book, multiple musicals, a documentary score and two operas – the latest of which, “Favorite Son,” will make its worldwide debut this weekend with the Nashville Opera at the Noah Liff Opera Center.

The gateway drug to opera

After a few record deals had fallen through for Hummon, a friend suggested he try writing theater. He says he tried it and got the bug.

“I went bonkers and started writing a musical per year,” Hummon said. “Each play was a lot of different solutions of how you tell a story in an hour-and-a-half using music and dance. It’s really challenging, but in some ways my favorite thing is working with opera, where you are telling a story entirely through music. As a composer, it’s kind of like the ultimate challenge.”

After his first opera (“Surrender Road”) debuted in 2005, he heard from some audience members who said, “That’s not opera.” Hummon’s response to that? “That’s OK with me.”

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He says his work is absolutely an opera, but it is relative to what the audience is expecting. If the expectation is lyrics sung in Italian, then this weekend’s “Favorite Son” won’t be what you are looking for. It’s more of a folk opera with instrumentation including piano, mandolin and percussion. Or the gateway drug to opera, if you will.

“A lot of people will have an expectation of a classical sound, and you will get a little bit of that,” he said. “But I like to play with those expectations. What you are primarily going to get is the way I write music – a particularly American voice. I would rather give you a melody that stays with you than just about anything.”

Storytelling through music

He added there’s an emotional advantage to telling a story entirely through music.

“Some people would say you can communicate people’s emotions and actions better with music than you can with the spoken word. If you go to a show like that and let it flow through you and don’t immediately go to cynicism, but let the story be told, it can be a really extraordinary experience.”

In addition to Hummon’s story, the performance itself is stacked with an impressive deck of performers including singer, songwriter, session musician, and four-time Grammy-nominated artist Darrell Scott; popular crossover tenor John Riesen; Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva, seen in last fall’s world premiere opera film “One Vote Won”; and Emma Grimsley, who led the North American touring company of “The Phantom of the Opera” through its closing in early 2020. The opera is directed by Nashville Opera CEO and Artistic Director John Hoomes.

The show’s ensemble cast is made up of a dozen Belmont University students from the school’s musical theater program.

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The storyline is extracted from Hummon’s song of the same name, “Favorite Son,” and takes more of a personal slant than many of his previous compositions. The opera is based on a character who was once a big deal and has been humbled by life and is trying to find his way through it.

“The story is about a kid who is a high school football player. The opening scene is his glory. I was a running back in high school and I had a coach who gave us a speech that I never forgot. One thing he said is that you don’t get to choose what you remember in life. Your memories choose you. He basically imparted on us whether you like it or not you are going to remember what you are going to do today, so you might as well go out there and lay it on the line.”

“Favorite Son” opens Jan. 21 and runs through Sunday, Jan. 23.

If you go

What: “Favorite Son” written by Nashville singer/songwriter Marcus Hummon and performed by the Nashville Opera.

When: 8 p.m. Jan. 21-22 and 3 p.m. Jan. 23

Where: Noah Liff Opera Center

Info: www.nashvilleopera.org/favoriteson

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Opera debuts 'Favorite Son' by Marcus Hummon