A VICTORIAN GOTHIC

 Kyle Decker Pitts as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

(photo by Brian Long)

We have spent entirely too much time searching for a typeface that would do justice to the darkly Victorian spirit of the compelling show we wish to tell you about. The spookier typefaces we tried were just not legible so let us just pretend. We don't want to waste any more time in urging you to try to grab one of the very few remaining seats to a performance that left us in utter admiration of its creativity.

The show, whilst not an opera, is operatic in scope. The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was a novella written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 and adapted by the polymath Whitney E. George; it was performed as a melodrama with intense music (composed and conducted by Maestro George herself) and stunning visual effects (by Orsolya Szánthó). Excellent period costuming was also achieved by Mo. George (with help from the Theatre Development Fund).

Even if one is not a fan of Victorian Gothic melodrama one would find the telling of this tale to be compelling and the staging original. In a feat of trompe l'oeil, what appeared to be a complex set design was achieved by a doorway center stage flanked by two "rooms" upstage which were suggested by skewed rectangular frames, each behind a scrim, one representing Dr. Jekyll's laboratory and the other an office. A simple chair with an old-fashioned gramophone stood downstage. The staging area included stairways up to and including a wraparound balcony lending an immersive feeling to the work. 

Lighting was created by Sierra and projections by Orsolya Szánthó, who also created the set design. The entire affair was co-directed by Mo. George and Attilio Rigotti, who also played the part of Utterson. Obviously everyone seems to have multiple talents and are presumably members of The Curiosity Cabinet, listed as Producer.

The acting was on point, just  sufficiently melodramatic for the audience to appreciate the historical period. The eponymous hero/villain was played by Kyle Decker Pitts with his friend Utterson played by Mr.  Rigotti. Maayan Voss de Bettancourt made quite an impression as narrator, slipping seamlessly into several other roles. Blake Friedman also assumed several roles. It was difficult to accept that all this drama had been created by three actors!

Mo. George's music was original and often spooky and served a similar mood enhancing function as a film score. Indeed there was a filmic quality to the piece, reminding us of film noir. Joined by a violin, a flutist stage left seemed to be playing instruments of different registers, . Out of sight was a percussionist who provided all manner of sounds and sound effects. A cello was listed on the program but we did not see. 

It was altogether a stunning evening of theater and about as long as a film and no longer than was necessary. As is customary we always mention a "quibble" and here it is. It is just our preference for natural voices, not just for opera but also for theater. There is a texture to amplification that our ears do not like. We were sitting very close to the musicians and found that the "incidental" music, which was anything but incidental, often drowned out the words of the actors.

Even with that reservation, we still found the work original, artistic, compelling, and satisfying. If the psychiatric illness of multiple personality disorder was recognized in the late 19th century we know not; but we suspect that the import of the novella was the exploration of the dual nature of mankind. Whichever way you take it, you will be marvelously entertained.

© meche kroop

A WONDERLAND FOR OUR TIME

Robert Feng, Nathaniel Mattingly, Laura Soto-Bayomi, Maestro Danielle Jageleski, and Mary Rice

City Lyric Opera put The Blue Gallery to good use in their staging of Elizabeth Raum's "opera" The Garden of Alice, seen last week and still recalled as a remarkable piece of theater. It was a wild idea of Ms. Raum to create a work of music theater based upon Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. We put opera in quotes because it is difficult for us to recognize it as such, save for the excellence of the voices we heard, which is why we have headed our review with a photo of the cast. 

We urge our dear readers to look at one of our Facebook pages (Voce di Meche or Meche Kroop) to see photos of the unusual setting and wildly inventive costumes.

We have seen theatrical performances before that had been adapted from Carroll's surreal story and concluded that the book is basically a psychedelic trip with its concurrent hallucinations and surreal images and transformations.  Director Attilio Rigotti had other ideas. In the program, which we did not read until after the experience, his concept was about the Wild West nature of the electronic world, a world without truth where everything is a construction. 

The concept is an interesting one with which we have no quarrel; it enabled and justified the use of all manner of electronic devices and projections including comments on the action filtered through the lens of twitter comments.

The staging was immersive and the audience and singers occupied the same room at the same time in a gallery that provides a number of spaces. There was quite a bit of moving around and each space had interesting features. The excellent six piece chamber orchestra remained in one place and when Maestro Danielle Jageleski needed to be conducting the singers in a different space, her image was presumably transmitted to the orchestra. The one flaw this created was that the sound of the orchestra as broadcast to another room was not the natural sound that we so enjoyed in the final scene of the work. This would seem to have been a necessary compromise.

The storytelling was of course episodic but the characters of the book which we recall were all present with the White Rabbit (a nattily dressed bass-baritone by the name of Nathaniel Mattingly) assuming an increasingly larger role in the story. He is the guide, so to speak, of Alice's adventures.  Soprano Laura Soto-Bayomi made a winsome Alice, keeping her cool in this strange environment.

Mezzo-soprano Mary Rice made a fine arrogant showing as both the Duchess and The Red Queen, wearing equally outstanding costumes for each role.  The most traditional operatic aria was delivered by soprano Gileann Tan in the role of the Dormouse.

We liked Ryan Lustgarten's performance as the falsely accused Knave of Hearts as well as Robert Feng's growly Mad Hatter. Baritone Steve Valenzuela was fine as the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat and Ramon Tenefrancia's tenor suited the March Hare.

The work is admittedly difficult to describe and must have been quite a challenge to stage with such "imagenuity", to coin a phrase. The female-centric City Lyric Opera has never shrunk from a challenge and the results were worthwhile. Contemporary opera seems to be fragmenting in all directions and who knows which pathway it will follow, but for the moment we enjoyed this production far more than the political diatribes that we avoid.  This work managed to be both entertaining and stimulating.

That being said, we still maintain that the major feature of the operatic art form is the unamplified sound of the human voice. The presence of electronics is, for us, a distraction.  We hope to hear each and every member of the cast in settings more conducive to vocal appreciation.

© meche kroop