SLAYLEM WITCH TRIALS

 Judge and Witches at Heartbeat Opera's "Slaylem"

 Those Heartbeat Opera mischief-makers were at it again with this year's version of their annual drag show, this year held at the venerable and oh-so-appropriate Judson Memorial Church, home to wild theatrical events since our earliest days in Manhattan.  Here's a little secret "dish" for you, Dear Reader. Someone very famous in the opera world got his start there portraying The Operatic Prince in Al Carmine's radical interpretation of the fairy tale Snow White. What a glorious thing to return to our very first exposure to NYC's radical theatrical scene!

We have never missed any of Heartbeat Opera's annual drag shows, always marveling at the creativity, originality, and gender bending. One can always count on stunning performances and fabulous costuming and makeup. This year was no exception and an enormous crowd of revelers had the time of their lives enjoying the exposure of hypocrisy from America's past history. 

In the 17th c. the colonies were not immune to the witch hunting craze consuming Europe. Arthur Miller chose to dramatize this embarrassing piece of history with a serious drama The Crucible, referencing McCarthyism, whilst Heartbeat Opera's devilish crew chose to treat the subject with satiric ridicule, which mass hysteria richly deserves. We hope at least some members of the audience were able to draw parallels with some of the issues being dealt with even today four centuries later.

It appears to us that Heartbeat is moving in a more popular direction than it has in prior years, engaging more of the audience by adaptation, changing of lyrics, and inclusion of more contemporary references for which we needed some assistance from our companion who is more familiar with pop culture and pop music than we are.

Some pieces were instantly recognizable such as the "Lacrimosa" from Mozart's Requiem, and "I am the Wife of Mao Tse Tung" from John Adams' Nixon in China. Our opera singer companion was able to identify some bel canto numbers that we missed. And who could have failed to identify Copland's "Simple Gifts" although we did not know it came from a ballet Appalachian Spring, written for the Martha Graham Company.

But this was not the point. The point was to entertain, to amuse, to play mind games by means of double entendre and gender bending, to poke fun at the pompous, and, above all, to make everything outrageously sexual as seen through the LGBTQ lens.  The work brought the audience to their collective feet.

The performers got into their characters with glee, intensity, and over-the-top humor. The always notable John Taylor Ward made good use of his long lanky frame to portray The Judge and Jamilyn Manning White went from Abigail to a sexy red-clad devil. The similarly long and lanky Hans Tashjian portrayed Misery; Bernard Holcomb took the role of Clemency; Angela Yam performed the role of Rebecca; Mercy was portrayed by Rodolfo Girón; Chastity was brought to life by Curtis Bannister. Needless to say, the voices are operatic and nothing was out of their vocal reach. It was a real mind fuck to hear familiar melodies with new English lyrics and to be unable to identify the music!

These unexpected lyrics were supplied by Director Nico Krell, violinist Jacob Ashworth, and Co-writer Garrett Bell. Mr. Krell did a fine job of keeping the story moving with raunchy vignettes. All three are credited as "Creators".

Under the direction of Dan Schlosberg, the orchestra comprised Mr. Schlosberg himself at the piano, Mr. Ashworth playing violin, with Mira Williams playing viola and Julia Henderson playing cello. Just as fantastically costumed (see our entries on Facebook and Instagram) as the stage performers, they did a fine job moving seamlessly from classical music to numbers of the popular genre.

The fantastic costumes were designed by David Quinn and we were most impressed by Ms. White's red devil costume. A sexier devil we have never seen! The costumes of the Pilgrims were grim on the outside but often hid racier elements. Maiko Ando's makeup added to the effects.

This queer extravaganza ended with a touching group sing of "Make Our Garden Grow" from Bernstein's Candide. As Generation Z would say "They ate and left no crumbs.

© meche kroop

OUR HEART BEATS FOR HEARTBEAT OPERA

The cast of Queens of the Night: Mozart in Space

Our customary Halloween Party lost out to Heartbeat Opera; when Co-Artistic Directors Ethan Heard and Louisa Proske plan an event, it takes precedence over anything else we might be doing. We know of no other organization in NYC that has its finger on the pulse of opera-curious young people. It gives us great pleasure to hear a sell-out crowd of 20-somethings hootin' and hollerin' for opera.

How does Heartbeat Opera do this?  Somehow, without diluting the art form, they manage to expand it to include elements that appeal to the young. They choose casual venues (this time the wonderful performance space National Sawdust in trendy Billyburg).

They cast excellent young performers (sopranos Jamilyn Manning-White and Marie Marquis, mezzo-soprano Kristin Gornstein, tenor Jordan Weatherston Pitts, and baritone John Taylor Ward). They have a crew of talented designers (Jon Carter, Miodrag Guberinic, Reid Thompson, Oliver Wason, and Joey Moro). They have excellent Co-Music Directors (Jacob Ashworth and Daniel Schlosberg.

The singing is topnotch and Mozart's music was arranged for string quartet plus bass and keyboard-- which worked well in the wide shallow space with a wide shallow stage. The musicians were clustered at one side of the stage with the rest of the stage available for all manner of fun stagecraft. 

The concept was something about aliens in space with the robot being portrayed by the petite dancer/choreographer Emma Jaster. There was liberal use made of the language of space travel in the script--re-entry and lift-off, control panels and pods, aliens and robots. Costuming and make-up (by MAC) was extravagant and candy-colored wigs completed the colorful imagery. There was unlimited imagination and creativity in evidence.

We got fresh takes on many Mozart standards. If the genius were alive today we think he would have gotten a kick out of Papagena and Papageno discovering sex through touching elbows. He would have laughed out loud seeing Tamino in a dress and wig. He would have thrilled to the fantabulous costume of the dragon, portrayed by Taurean Everett.

But what would he have made of the dragon lip-syncing to Aretha Franklin's version of "Nessun dorma"? We were giggling inside imagining him saying something racy about "that Puccini fella".

Well, everything else was Mozart and if the Puccini got a huge hand, Ms. Manning-White's Queen of the Night garnered an even larger one. 

The event was a benefit and even the fund-raising effort was memorable. We watched a captivating performance that raised $2000 in less than 10 minutes! This young company (just over 2 years old) deserves our support. The future of opera lies with young people and they are drawn in by adventure, creativity, color, imagination, and vitality.  Heartbeat Opera has it all.

Bizet's Carmen and Puccini's Madama Butterfly will be re-invented by Heartbeat in May.  We will be there!  See you there!

(c) meche kroop

GETTIN' HI WITH WILD HEARTBEAT

Joshua Jeremiah, Kristin Gornstein, Jamilyn Manning-White, Emma Jaster, Louisa Proske and Ethan Heard

Nothing Heartbeat Opera does is commonplace. The work of Co-Directors Louisa Proske and Ethan Heard is marked by daring originality and intense creative effort. The results continue to win new friends for opera.

Last night, in partnership with Friends of the High Line, a fabulous free event right on The High Line introduced a vast crowd of New Yorkers to an art form with which many were unacquainted. If some were not opera fans when they arrived, they were surely opera fans when they left.

Heartbeat Opera originated when Yale graduates Ms. Proske and Mr. Heard undertook to take a fresh look at opera--not the way regietheater folk contort an opera to fit their own wacky ideas but rather by bringing out the wackiness of the art form itself.

They have freed opera from the strictures of traditional performance in traditional venues and can be considered a shining light among the new and nimble small companies making opera compelling to young people.  They have established quite a following.

We personally had a blast and, since there were folks sitting on both sides of the thrust stage, we got a good look at other folks having an equally marvelous time.  The cast managed somehow to keep moving so that each side got equal time.  During "The Flower Duet" from Delibes' Lakmé, the "groundlings", seated on mats in front of the chair section, waved flowers back and forth in time with the music. Later, the flashlights on cell phones were similarly waved back and forth. Up close and personal, we all felt like part of the show.

The three singers were well chosen to cover all the bases (except bass and tenor) and each artist was able to choose his/her own material, guaranteeing that heart(beat) and soul would go into each and every performance.  

Wisely, familiar pieces were chosen from the well-known operas of Mozart, Handel, Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, Rossini, and....Rogers and Hammerstein, thus lending authenticity to our dearly held belief that Broadway music represents the counterpart of "opera" in the 20th c.

The composers of Broadway musicals wrote music for the people of their time that was accessible in the way that Verdi was to Italians in the 19th c. Their works appealed to the masses with rip-roaring drama and characters with which the audience could identify, singing memorable tunes.

The three singers were infallibly on point and incredibly entertaining. Although we have favorably reviewed all three before in better acoustics, we somehow didn't mind the amplification made necessary by the outdoor venue.

Soprano Jamilyn White opened the program with "Quando m'en vo" from Puccini's La Bohème and was followed by Kristen Gornstein performing the "Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen.  The two women harmonized beautifully in the aforementioned flower song--"Sous le dôme eépais".

Baritone Joshua Jeremiah wooed the audience with "Some Enchanted Evening" from Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific; he sang it with all the respect given to any operatic aria.  He made a fine Don Giovanni to Ms. Gornstein's overly enthusiastic Zerlina who jumped onto his back in "La ci darem la mano".  We enjoyed his "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia;  His voice melded beautifully with the women's in "Soave sia il vento" from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte.

Ms. White drew great applause for her dazzling Queen of the Night from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.

There was no printed program but Emma Jaster, a tiny pixie of a dancer, wearing a flesh-colored leotard and a rainbow wig, bore placards announcing the composer on one side and the opera on the other--giving each side equal time.  Happily, she was granted solo time and her corporeal expression of the ethereal "Meditation" from Massenet's Thaïs was heartfelt and beautiful to behold.

Since we have arrived at a discussion of costuming, let it be noted that the baroque (in one sense of the word) and motley designs of Jon Carter added greatly to the fun of the evening.  There were lots of spangles and spandex, vests and vestments. Wigs were baroque (in the historical sense of the word). MAC Cosmetics provided the materials for the wild make-up. We refer readers to our Facebook page "Voce di Meche" on which we will post an array of photos showing what words can only approximate.

The musical arrangement by Co-Music Directors Jacob Ashworth and Daniel Schlosberg was just as original as the rest of the evening.  A three piece band comprised a keyboard played by Mr. Schlosberg, a violin bowed by Mr. Ashworth, and an array of saxophones blown badly by an unknown musician. A couple sour notes failed to impair our delight.

Producing director for the event was Jennifer Newman. Effective lighting was by Oliver Wason and equally effective sound design was by Harrison Keithline who gets props for not assaulting our ears with excessive amplification.

Balloons were tossed and popped, flowers were waved, cell phones were waved, photos were snapped. We didn't see a single unhappy face.  Yes, Virginia, opera can be FUN!

(c) meche kroop

LUCIA!

Jamilyn Manning-White (photo by Russ Rowland)

There is a very fine line between bringing new insights to a work from the 19th c. and trashing it. We are pleased to report that Heartbeat Opera, one of our favorite small opera companies,  belongs to the former category.  Last night we marveled at the insightful adaptation of Donizetti's masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor. More than an adaptation, we consider it a distillation of the essence of Salvadore Cammarano's libretto and a superb introduction to the opera.

The house was packed for opening night of the festival which includes lots of goodies, as you may learn on their website, www.heartbeatopera.org. It did our heart good to see an audience of 20-somethings thrilling to Donizetti's score in a unique arrangement by Daniel Schlosberg featuring a string quartet, guitar, clarinet, and some dazzling percussion by wizard Bill Solomon.

As directed by Louisa Proske (Co-Artistic Director of Heartbeat Opera), crucial scenes of the story are presented as flashbacks or fantasies of the poor heroine who appears in a hospital bed, struggling against her restraints.  Her reality appears upstage behind a sheer curtain with the memories taking place downstage.

All the crucial scenes were there. We loved the scene taking place at the fountain between Lucia and her friend Alisa in which Lucia frightens Alisa with her ghost story.  One can already see the unbalanced nature that will be pushed over the edge by the manipulations of her brother Enrico; he has been alerted by his captain of the guard Normanno of her secret rendez-vous with Enrico's enemy Edgardo.  Her only supporter is Raimondo, the family confessor, but he too has been deceived and abandons her to a forced marriage with Arturo, chosen for political reasons.

As the eponymous heroine, one could not ask for a better interpreter than Jamilyn Manning-White whose prodigious skills with the fioritura of the bel canto period were matched by her dramatic artistry. Our heart broke for this victim of male privilege.

Tenor David Guzman made a fine romantic partner as Edgardo; baritone Matthew Singer conveyed all the brutality of a selfish brother whose deviousness was informed by political desperation. John Taylor Ward was effective as Raimondo and Monica Soto-Gil made an excellent impression as Lucia's friend Alisa.

Maestro Schlosberg conducted from the piano and his arrangement brought out many interesting voices in the score. We were particularly taken by the wizardry of percussionist Bill Solomon who created sounds to rival that of the glass harmonica one never gets to hear.

Scenic Designer Reid Thompson did much with little.  Costumes by Beth Goldenberg were contemporary.

Although the two operas of the festival were presented sequentially on opening night, the rest of the week permits one to see just one at a time. We wish we could be as enthusiastic about Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas but we cannot. The baroque music was gorgeous. Carla Jablonski's Dido sang beautifully. John Taylor Ward's Aeneas fulfilled the promise of his smaller role in Lucia.

However, the English diction was so poor, especially on the part of the women singers, that we felt we were hearing an opera in a language with which we were only slightly familiar.  It was like listening to Russian and recognizing a word here and there.

Nothing about the story was illuminated and the bizarre movements made no sense to us. We sat there totally baffled by the storytelling. There were so-called witches and sorceresses waving branches, occupying a bathtub and masturbating against push-brooms.  This didn't add up to anything meaningful.  Only "Dido's Lament" at the conclusion was meaningful.  We just couldn't figure out what director Ethan Heard (Co-Artistic Director) was going for.

So...we give an unqualified YEA to Lucia and a NAY to Dido. See it at your own risk!

(c) meche kroop

MUSIC THAT CHARMS

Cullen Gandy, Daniel Curran, Yungee Rhie, Jamilyn Manning-White (photo by Richard Termine)

Pluto, god of the underworld, never permitted an arrival to his domain to return to the world of the living; no, not until Orpheus, encouraged by his father Apollo, used his prodigious gift of song to soften the heart of Pluto and charm him into releasing Eurydice.  At the Gotham Chamber Opera's production of Charpentier's 1686 work, La descente d'Orphée aux enfers, we the audience are charmed by the gift of song.

In a master stroke of site-specific staging we are invited into St. Paul's Chapel, the oldest continually inhabited building in New York, to hear one of the oldest surviving operas.  Although this is not the first opera to be based on the myth of Orpheus, (that honor goes to Peri's 1600 version) nor the most frequently performed (that honor likely goes to Gluck's l762 version) nor the favorite of early music fans (that honor might go to the 1607 Monteverdi version) it was well worth the gorgeous production it received from Gotham's completely effective production team comprising Stage Director Andrew Eggert, Set Designer Julia Noulin-Merat, Costume Designer Vita Tzykun, Lighting Designer Mark Stanley, Choreographer Doug Elkins  with projections by S. Katy Tucker.

The set was simply a slightly raised platform with a white scrim obscuring the sight, but not the sound, of eight early music specialists producing the most gorgeous sounds, conducted by Neal Goren.  The circular staircase and the balcony were put to good use for the gods Apollon, Pluton and Proserpine.  Apollon was magnificently sung by rising star baritone John Brancy, costumed in golden tunic with a curly blond wig.  Pluton and Proserpine, costumed in black with steampunk influence, were finely sung by appropriately booming bass Jeffrey Beruan and the scintillating soprano Mary Feminear.

That staircase was also used for Orphée's descent to the underworld.  Daniel Curran's winning tenor was persuasive in expressing the many moods of the young bard--joyful at his impending marriage, grief at losing his bride, imploring as he pleaded for her release.  Since the third act (in which he loses her again when he disobeys the instructions to not look back) was either never written or was lost, we the audience can leave without despair.

We have witnessed happy shepherds and nymphs celebrating the impending marriage in charming dance and song.  We have witnessed poor Euridice (lovely soprano Jamilyn Manning-White) felled by a snake bite and Orphée's grief.  We hear Apollon's advice and Orphée's pleading his case.  We thrill to Pluton's majesty and Proserpine's hard heart softening.  We see the happily reunited couple climbing out of Pluto's realm. We are satisfied without the tragic third act.

The contrast between the verdant first act and the threatening second act, which takes place in the underworld, were effectively conveyed by projections on the scrim and the spectacle of three bad boys suffering torments that were relieved by Orphée's singing.  Light-hearted shepherds were transformed into agonized souls by virtue of vocal color, scary makeup and tattered costumes.   Until we recognized the superlative voices of Cullen Gandy and Mr. Brancy, we would never have identified them.

The performance was a perfect example of all elements coming together with nary a weak link.  The Gotham Chamber Opera is known for producing unusual chamber works in unusual venues.  Our New Year's wish is that all future productions be as effective as this one.

© meche kroop