Baden-Baden 1927 by Gotham Chamber Opera
October 26, 2013 - The Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay
College
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| Image credit: Georg Baselitz / Gotham Chamber Opera |
Gotham Chamber Opera opened its season by taking a fresh
look at four one-act operettas first presented at the Baden-Baden Festival of
Contemporary Music on July 17, 1927. The quality and caliber of the production
were sensational by any standards and even more so for a company of this size.
Mixed media techniques were deployed. Live camera recordings were projected on stage
in ways that heightened the drama. The stage was transformed into a massive
multipurpose art gallery with paintings by German neo-expressionist artist
Georg Baselitz. The costumes were playful and cohesive. Paul Curran’s direction was consistently clever and inventive. In
short, it was a refreshing contemporary take on material that was avant-garde
in 1927. It is always a pleasure and a privilege to be in the presence of such
talent and vision.
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
Each opera was introduced by a different singer who
interacted with the public and gave a playful take on each piece. This served
both as entertainment during the set changes and also as live production notes.
Creating a mise-en-abyme, by placing one form of art inside the other, and
posing the overarching question: “What is Art?”, these touches of
immersion-theatrical techniques sought to involve the audience, from questions
on the plots to on-stage commentary during intermission to the selection of a
reluctant dance partner for the two female characters in the last operetta.
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| Image credit: Gotham Chamber Opera |
Though they were doing a lot, they made it all look very
simple. After having been so impressed with Gotham's site-specific production
of Eliogabalo at the Box (that made our 2012-13 highlights list), the full-on theatrical professionalism on display here was really on a
whole other level. The music was electrifying; Neal Goren’s conducting was crisp and dynamic. In many ways it
reminded me of Shostakovich, not surprisingly given that these works premiered
only three years before The Nose. Helen
Donath (soprano), Maeve Höglung
(soprano), John Cheek (bass), Matthew Tuell (tenor), Daniel Montenegro (tenor), Michael Mayes (baritone), Jennifer Rivera (mezzo) formed an
impressive cast, with top-notch and high-energy singing and acting. All of the
singers commanded attention on stage each in their own unique way, evidently
having a lot of fun in the process.
On the specific operettas:
Darius Milhaud's L’Enlèvement
d’Europe (The Abduction
of Europa) is perhaps the shortest opera I have ever seen, at only 8 minutes.
The concept of Zeus coming out of a painting (and wearing a camoflaged suit
matching the patterns of the painting) was genius. In just a few brushstrokes,
the production team was able to communicate the idea of the rapturous power of the divine
emerging from a work of art (or is it the other way around?) and seducing a
glamorous Europa, with a chorus of little-black-dress gallerinas commenting on
the action. It was a slice of Chelsea and a modern spin on a classic myth that
made a whole lot of sense.
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
Ernst Tosch's Die
Prinzessin Auf Der Ersbe (The Princess and the Pea) was my least
favorite portion of the evening. In an effort revamp the
original piece, the production took it in a reality-TV direction that I always
have a hard time stomaching, even if, as in this case, it is used as social
satire. The techniques employed, however, were visually very effective. A live
feed of footage being filmed by cameramen buzzing about the stage was projected
onto the elaborate sets themselves. The whole thing was very busy but also very
carefully choreographed. Kaleidoscopic psychedelia: achieved!
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
Paul Hindemith's Hin Und Zuruck (There and Back) was
the most delightful of the four for me. It was a perfect little package with a
narrative of love, betrayal, murder, suicide, and an Andy Warhol
deus-ex-machina that rewinds the story, palindrome-style, to a happy ending: the beginning. Very clever realization with parallel projections of the story running forward
while the actors are in the process of unfolding the action in reverse.
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
Kurt Weill's collaboration with Bertolt Brecht, the Mahagonny
Songspiel, was certainly the
most famous and recognizable piece of the evening. Its absurd surrealism came
across with a zany sense of Weimar-era humor, and the singers lit up the stage
with a startlingly fresh take on the classic "Moon of Alabama Song"
that has been covered by such acts as the Doors, David Bowie and Nina Simone.
As is to be expected, the whole thing was crazy, allegorical quasi-nonsense, although very entertainingly so.
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
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| Photo Credit: Richard Termine |
An extremely satisfying evening at the theater. Makes you think
that the spot left by NYC Opera has already been filled by this vibrant,
visionary and virtuosic independent company. Especially since a little more
than a year ago NYC Opera fleshed out this same space to much less elaborate
use with Christopher Alden's monotone and monochrome production of Così fan
tutte.
Baden-Baden 1927 was an impressive display of
creative power, innovative thinking and top-notch execution by Gotham Chamber
Opera. This company showed it has the means and vision to bring some high
quality fresh air into NYC’s opera scene. Eagerly awaiting their next shows
this season, I am particularly intrigued by the site-specific production of
Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda in the armor room
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 26 and 27, 2014.
Gotham Chamber Opera, what you do to me, I want done forever!
– Lei & Lui
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