“Thérèse Raquin” at Microscopic Opera Company & “A Skull in Connemara” at PICT

The Pittsburgh Tatler: The story of Tobias Picker and Gene Scheer’s new opera Thérèse Raquin is distilled from Emile Zola’s late 19th-century novel (and, later, play) of the same title: Thérèse Raquin endures an unhappy and stifling existence living in Paris with her sickly husband Camille and his overbearing, coddling mother Madame Raquin. Thérèse conducts a passionate love affair with Camille’s former childhood friend and current office co-worker, Laurent, who is an aspiring artist with far more robust health and appetites than Camille. On an outing to the river, the three take a boat ride, and Laurent stages a “boating accident” that results in Camille’s death by drowning. Cut to Act Two and a year later: family friends beg Laurent to marry Thérèse so she will move beyond her grief over Camille’s death. Laurent “reluctantly” agrees, the two are married, their plan has succeeded! But the guilt they both feel over murdering Camille has destroyed their passion for each other—they can, in fact, barely stand to be in the same room together. Oh, and Camille’s ghost is haunting them. Madame Raquin overhears them talking about the murder and immediately suffers a stroke that completely paralyzes her: unable to move or speak, she compounds their feelings of guilt and paranoia by keeping them under her constant accusatory glare. One evening, during their weekly domino game with friends, Madame summons the will to write out the beginning of a sentence: “Thérèse and Laurent are…” Realizing that she plans to torture them with her knowledge of their guilt, Thérèse and Laurent take their own lives.