Rambunctious Baroque Fun

Jewels of the Baroque

(High voices and low tea in a semi-precious setting)

Opera Feroce / Vertical Player Repertory

Behind the Door, 219 Court Street, Brooklyn

November 28, 2015

"Castrati" getting loud
Photo credit: Vertical Player Repertory

Lei: Behind a tiny red door at 219 Court Street (Brooklyn), we were transported to a parallel 17th century universe, where everybody wore powdered (and feathered!) wigs, sported over the top Baroque gear and bore eccentric improbable names in a hodgepodge of old world tomfoolery. The hosts were British and served tea (with deliciously buttery scones and classic cucumber sandwiches) at intermission, the “renowned ensemble” providing entertainment was composed of an dashing young Italian man, Sig.re Topazio Ametista Catenadoro (mezzo Hayden DeWitt), a prissy French wannabe primadonna, M.lle Zirconie Pavé (soprano Beth Anne Hatton) and a self-absorbed German fop, Herr Smaragd Solitaroff von Schmückstuck (countertenor Alan Dornak), not to mention their “banda” of musicians with equally colorful names: Joe Ielli (flauto traverso), Wisteria Peasblossom (baroque violin), Yo-yo Ma-ma (viola da gamba), and Saffronia Peasblossom (harpsichord).

M.lle Pavé and Sig.re Topazio Catenadoro
Photo credit: Vertical Player Repertory

Lui: We’ve all been invited to Mrs. Minnie Minim’s home for “an après-midi of fine music presented by the renowned ensemble Opera Feroce.” Her husband, a cranky old fart who spoke in a slurred Welsh accent popped out half dressed every so often slightly perturbed by the ruckus in his parlor and their daughter Miss Acquamarinia Minim (soprano Allegra Durante, sporting a miniature peacock as headpiece) was also on hand. Speaking in a hybrid of Romanaccio Italian and heavily accented English, Topazio Ametista Catenadoro acted as the master of ceremonies throughout most of the show. After thanking the audience and Mrs. Minim for her hospitality, Catenadoro announced that they would be starting with a nice song about a shipwreck, (Caprioli’s Navicella ch’a bel vento) which in his broken English came out sounding like “sheep-wreck.” The laughs start early.

Schmückstuk exhibits his way with women.
Photo credit: Vertical Player Repertory

Lei: And the colpi di scena (or coups de theatre while we’re at it) arrive quickly, too. A lovely Bach duetto per flauto e violino by Miss Wisteria Peaseblossom and Mr. Joe Ielli (which sounds like “jewels” in Italian – get it?) was abruptly interrupted by a thunderous knocking on the door. I seriously thought it was some rude opera loving latecomer (there are many of those out there). But no, it was all part of the show, as an over the top uber-jeweled, feathered and Venetian-masqued operatic diva made her grand entrance together with a crazy-haired sketchy guy. She introduced herself as Diamante Maria Scarabelli (soprano Judith Barnes) and her companion as her trusted musician (and jealous lover) Señor Juan Almendra Sebolla Avellana Perejil y Gambas (playing the viola da gamba, of course).

Sig.ra Scarabelli is simply irresistible.
Photo credit: Vertical Player Repertory

Sig.ra Scarabelli mentions, in heavy Italian accent, that she wears a mask otherwise everybody would want to kiss her and touch her on the street because she’s such an operatic sensation. Turns out she was not kidding as Diamante Maria Scarabelli was indeed a real life popular Italian soprano in the late 17th and early 18th century (and indeed one could suspect that, as her name was the least absurd of the bunch). Diamante explains that she heard of the little concert and could not resist stopping by to make some music and regale everybody with her talent. The diva hijacks the show creating a number of hilarious vignettes: she distributes new concert programs with her name in a font that’s double the size of everybody else, sings moving lamenti from Bonconcini, Monteverdi and Porpora (every time tearing up and saying stuff like “this Claudio [Monteverdi] makes me feel things in the inside”). She constantly belittles the “French” soprano M.lle Pavé (who sneers “nous at Operrra Ferrross sommes ici pour la musique, pas pour ecouter vos cochonneries!), brags about her many dead husbands (all composers she “inspired” as their “muse,” of course) and so on.

The diva and her charms.
Photo credit: Vertical Player Repertory

Lui: And just when you thought the Opera Feroce troupe was already having more fun than such a recital could possibly allow, they go and dial it up another notch and then another yet. Think about the duet between Herr von Schmückstuck and Miss Minim (Son nato a lagrimar, from Handel’s Giulio Cesare) that ends with Mr. Minim spanking his daughter because she starts speaking dirty German (the influence of the fop, no doubt). Or else the finale when tutti sing an aria from Mozart’s Idomeneo (the composer is not born yet, but when he is, Diamante will make him her “13th husband” because he will be a genius). Herr von Schmückstuck sings a very inspired final “Andrò ramingo e solo” in his deepest baritone voice, which prompts Catenadoro to yell “you’re not a real castrato!!!” To which he retorts “and neither are you!” (indeed, she’s a mezzo soprano). To conclude, Diamante, intrigued by his unexpected male attributes, starts flirting with von Schmückstuck while everybody takes a bow.

M.lle Pavé singing something lovely.
Photo credit: Vertical Player Repertory

Lei: Make no mistake about it: this company may successfully joke around and make its public laugh hysterically, but it is dead serious about the period music it makes, uncovering rare gems of the Italian, French and German 17th and 18th century repertoire, from Bonconcini to Monteverdi and Porpora, Rameau and Janequin, Telemann, Handel and Krieger. The genius of Opera Feroce consists in playing with the extravagant spirit of the Baroque and reinventing its interpretation in fresh and highly entertaining ways. No detail is too small for this company, as every single aspect of their show (costumes, props, programs, scones, multi-lingual jokes) was thoughtfully curated with an irreverent effervescence, yet coupled with an incredibly competent musicianship and respect of the original score and text.

Herr von Schmückstuk flaunts his stuff.
Photo credit: Vertical Player Repertory

Lui: We thought that with “Jewels of the Baroque” Opera Feroce was going to bring us a respectable teatime recital of baroque rarities, but after having discovered them in the extravagant pastiche Arminio in Armenia, we should have known to expect better than that. The whole evening was such a feast of linguistic playful pleasure on top of all the fabulous music. The artists of this fierce opera company outdid themselves yet again with a ragtag mash up of theatrical and musical entertainment punctuated by bouts of well-choreographed chaos and a true linguistic feast with hilarious dialogues in Italian, French and German. These guys just bring the music to life with the sheer joy that they so clearly bring to performing it, and the public cannot help but join in the contagious rambunctious Baroque fun.

- Lei & Lui

Opera Feroce e Amici
Photo credit: Vertical Player Repertory

A Fierce Baroque Pasticcio

Opera Feroce’s Arminio in Armenia

Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church (Brooklyn Heights)

January 10, 2014

Opera seria in two acts

Music by Nicola Porpora (Germanico in Germania, Carlo il Calvo, Semiramide Riconosciuta, Agrippina)

Libretto by A. Sconosciuto

While I was having breakfast last Friday morning, social media told me that, in case I was in the mood for baroque, Vertical Player Repertory recommended Opera Feroce’s Arminio in Armenia, playing that same evening in a Brooklyn Heights church. Of course I am always in the mood for baroque, especially if performed by a company named Opera Feroce - “Fierce Opera” or, as they put it on their website, “opera that bites.” The advertisement had little yet intriguing information on the show, stating that it had been created “by cross-pollinating an original plot and a lot of great music by Nicola Porpora” and involved “Shipwreck! Sorcery! Swordfights! And Turkeys!” Also, tickets were “$20 at the door (with no one turned away).” This was more than enough to lure us to the Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church, where we were rewarded with a most exhilarating and unique operatic experience.

Enticing flier for the cryptic event

Arminio in Armenia is a fun though seriously well-structured experiment that manages to repurpose delightful baroque arias in an approachable homage to the world of Italian opera seria. The piece is a baroque pastiche that rearranges arias from several of Nicola Porpora’s little-known operas and cantatas to fit an intricate plot where the fearless crusader Arminio is sent by the Pope to convert the Armenians to Catholicism, but ends up shipwrecked in Massachusetts, where he decides to convert the puritanical Pilgrims of the New World instead (!). Arminio’s adventures lead him to close encounters with Norberto, the uptight governor of Massachusetts, his twin peasant brother Adalberto, the latter’s love interest Clorofilla, the sorceress Tusnelda and the pilgrim maiden Genovinda.

Photo credit: Opera Feroce

The libretto is a combination of (mostly) original Italian arias and English recitatif. While on paper it sounds odd, it actually worked perfectly, playfully making the pasticcio feature crystal clear. I have to say that I liked this approach better than the Met’s Enchanted Island that kept the original music but re-wrote all the plundered arias in English. The beauty of the original Italian baroque arias is entirely lost if one slaps some English singing on them.

Opera Feroce admirably seems to have respected the integrity of the original Italian arias throughout, however, with one perhaps glaring and hilarious exception. In one of his stand out moments at the end of Act I, the quixotic governor belts out his mission as leader of his motley crew of Protestant refugees: “Miseri! I Pellegrini cercando la Terra Nuova / e la libertà dal Vaticano, da un barbaro / che mai non dimostrò pietà, che vuol / che i Pellegrini siano soggetti del Papa.”* For some reason, I just can’t imagine how such sentiments, which Norberto delivers in the pose of a rock-n-roll diva, could have fit anywhere into Porpora’s early eighteenth-century body of work.

Photo credit: Opera Feroce

Not only does this group have a sense of humor, but they also have vision. The first act in particular was brilliantly constructed with meticulous care placed on the layering of multiple subplots. After an action packed opening that features a storm at sea and a shipwreck, the cast of characters is introduced through a series of scenes that include more than one case of mistaken identities, intersecting triangles of amorous intrigue, magic spells and heightened religious and ideological tensions. The second act does not quite match the first in terms of care in composition and it seems to rush all too headlong toward a clean conclusion. While it is no less enjoyable, the payoff could be greater if they cultivated more of the narrative seeds planted in Act I, in which so many exciting characters came to life.

Although the show was advertised as a “re-premiere” concert (the piece was first performed in June 2012), it was actually a highly entertaining semi-staged performance, with singers jumping in and out of simple costumes, really acting and using props that ranged from turkey legs to magic wands. The three singers were all on double duty, each performing two very different characters. Mezzo-soprano Hayden DeWitt played the brave crusader Arminio and the pious pilgrim maiden Genovinda. Soprano Beth Anne Hatton was both the fierce witch Tusnelda and the Zerlina-like country girl Clorofilla. But it was Alan Dornak who showcased the widest range, switching back and forth from countertenor to baritone as Norberto and Adalberto, respectively. While all three were evidently having a lot of fun with the piece and had hilarious comic acting moments, they were quite serious about their singing, with excellent Italian articulation and great baroque musicality.

Beth Anne Hatton

Alan Dornak

Hayden DeWitt

The energy, passion and unassuming talent of these singers and the five-piece ensemble (violins, harpsichord, viola da gamba, traverso) were refreshing and left us wanting for more. The program mentions that sometime later this year we will have the pleasure of a fully staged costumed performance of this same piece. We will be sure to check out how Opera Feroce manages to improve this great material. Meanwhile, we’ll look forward to their next show, Magdalene’s Dilemma, an oratorio/mystery play with music by Giovanni Bonconcini – on February 6, as part of the Midtown Concert Series of the Gotham Early Music Scene.

- Lei & Lui

* “Miserable ones! The Pilgrims came in search / of the New world and freedom from the / Vatican and from a barbarian who never / showed any mercy, who wanted them to be / subjects of the Pope.”