Dangerous Mezzo Productions

Off-the-wall opera updated
Dalhousie students take on Offenbach’s comedy, Orpheus in the Underworld
By Our Staff
Wed. Feb 4 - 9:45 AM

[Paul Medeiros, left Becca Topp and Jeremy Dutcher rehearse a scene from Dalhousie Opera Workshop’s production of Orpheus. The opera will run from Thursday to Sunday in the Sir James Dunn Theatre. (Staff)

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Paul Medeiros, left Becca Topp and Jeremy Dutcher rehearse a scene from Dalhousie Opera Workshop’s production of Orpheus. The opera will run from Thursday to Sunday in the Sir James Dunn Theatre. (Staff)

Narcissus making love to his own head shot. Mercury on a bicycle. Jupiter being called to account for his scattershot sexual encounters. Classical mythology was never like this.

But French composer Jacques Offenbach sends the gods up with enthusiasm in his 1858 comic opera Orpheus in the Underworld. Audiences were prudish about his satire at first, expressing more shock than awe. But later, won over by pretty tunes and comic twists of plot, they ended up being enchanted and delighted.

Offenbach’s comedy has been a staple of opera company repertoires for 150 years.

In the Sir James Dunn Theatre on Thursday night, the Dalhousie Music Department Opera Workshop stages the first of four performances of Orpheus in the Underworld with two student casts, pianist Dean Bradshaw and conductor Gary Ewer. The director Nina Scott-Stoddart, in conversation with soprano Becca Topp in Marcia Swanston’s voice studio, puts it this way: “I see it as examining sexual politics. Every single scene, and there’s four of them, centres around relationships between men and women.

“In Act 1 there’s the eternal triangle: There’s Orpheus, there’s Euridice and there’s Aristaeus (who is really Pluto in disguise). All the tension there is how these three are going to work out their relationship. It’s operetta so there’s a light touch, of course, Offenbach trying to amuse and also trying to shock.

“It was a very shocking piece when it debuted in the middle of the 19th century. People were aghast that somebody would treat these sacred, high, morally lofty tales of gods and goddesses like a cheap burlesque. And Marcia found a wonderful English translation of the libretto by Jeremy Sams.”

Swanston commented: “It’s a great show with wonderful tunes. The music is really enjoyable and I have to say it really is a good translation. It’s so clever. There are so many references to contemporary attitudes, and it’s risque.”

In the classic tale, Orpheus is a musician. His wife Euridice is beautiful. While walking in her garden one day, she is fatally bitten by a snake and is taken to the Underworld. Orpheus travels to Mount Olympus, where he plays his blues so heartbreakingly that the gods decide to let Euridice come back to earth. She will follow him out of Hell, but he must not look back till he reaches Earth. Racked by doubts, he looks back expecting she will not be there. She is and has to return forever. Orpheus returns empty-handed.

Offenbach’s spin on the tale is pure tongue-in-cheek. Orpheus is a violinist, but a bad one. Euridice, driven out of her mind by his scratching, is a flirt having an affair with Aristaeus, who is Pluto, the god of the Underworld, in disguise.

Orpheus travels to Mount Olympus to present his case. He brings with him a new character: Public Opinion. Jupiter, mindful of his own children, who are watching rebelliously for any sign of hypocrisy since their mothers are mostly his own daughters, tells Pluto to give Euridice back.

Needless to say, that’s not the end of the story. The climax comes at a party in Hell where everybody, urged on by Bacchus, the god of wine, behaves badly. Jupiter resorts to a thunderbolt to sort things out.

The opera is being staged in modern dress. Topp (Feb. 5 and 7 performances), who shares the role of Euridice with Mary-Claire Sanderson (Feb. 6 and 8), says, “We’ve put in things like cellphones and iPods. Euridice is rather flighty. She doesn’t stay with any one person for any length of time. This is facilitated by the fact that she’s always plugged in, always connected, always looking for that next text message or what she wants to listen to.”

As a young woman, Topp finds a feminist perspective in the opera. “At every turn, Euridice is finding a way to pull the situation in her favour. She’s in a position of power.”

The opera plays nightly at 7:30 till Saturday, ending with a 2 p.m. matinee Sunday. Tickets are $15 and $10 and are available at the Dalhousie Arts Centre box office. Call 494-3820 or 1-800-874-1669 or purchase online (artscentre.dal.ca).

We’re well underway with this year’s Dal Opera Workshop — this year’s work is Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, with an amazing English translation by Jeremy Sams. I am thrilled I get to direct at Dal again this year (my third) and Orpheus is such a treat

See the Dal Music website for more production details:

http://music.dal.ca/Ensembles/Opera_Workshop.php

Consul cast equal to challenge
Oatway ate show-stopping solo alive in a
By STEPHEN PEDERSEN Arts Reporter
Sun. Jul 27 - 7:59 AM

[Magda (Judith Oatway) confronts the Secret Police Agent (Greg Wagland) in Menotti’s The Consul. The Consul will be performed July 28 and 31 and Aug. 2 in the Dunn Theatre at 7:30 p.m. The opera has two casts with different singers on July 28 and Aug. 1.

]

Magda (Judith Oatway) confronts the Secret Police Agent (Greg Wagland) in Menotti’s The Consul. The Consul will be performed July 28 and 31 and Aug. 2 in the Dunn Theatre at 7:30 p.m. The opera has two casts with different singers on July 28 and Aug. 1.

I have to say at the start that Gian-Carlo Menotti is not one of my favourite composers. Especially in versions of his operas that, for want of funds, have to be accompanied by piano rather than orchestra. His orchestrations add a dimension to his music that softens its angularity and rounds off its sharper corners.

However, pianist Tara Morton, the musical director of Halifax Summer Opera Workshop, whose production of Menotti’s The Consul opened in the Dunn Theatre Friday night, is a first-rate accompanist. Her tempos are alert, her playing bold and ideally clear, her contribution not just important but indispensable.

The story is a mix of 20th century paranoia and bitterness at the heartlessness of bureaucracy. . Magda Sorel’s husband John, an outspoken critic of a middle-European totalitarian regime, is shot while running from the police. He hides out in the mountains, but refuses to cross the frontier until Magda, his infant son, and his mother can leave with him.

But Magda’s attempts to get exit visas are frustrated by bureaucracy in the person of The Secretary. Magda goes to see the consul, supposedly the American consul, but The Secretary’s often repeated refrain is he is too busy, come back tomorrow.

Magda and John’s baby is ill and needs medical attention outside the country. In any case, he dies before the end of the first act. Heartbroken and filled with anxiety, Magda waits to see the consul, implores the Secretary, and dreads that John will come back and be arrested and charged with treason.

The closest Magda gets to The Consul is an assurance that she can see him as soon as his important guest leaves. The guest turns out to be the head of the secret police.

Menotti is a master of dramatic effect. There are at least three show-stopping musical set pieces in The Consul. The first is an intense, forceful trio full of angst and passion sung by Magda, John and the Mother. The second is the Mother’s lullaby to the dying child, sung effectively by Oriana Dunlop.

The third is Magda’s well-known second act aria, To This We’ve Come. Soprano Judith Oatway ate this one alive, creating the opera’s most powerful moment with the intensity and force of her passion.

John, who is the most important person in the Sorel family, is not the focus of the opera, but Alfred Stockwell plays the character with the right amount of focus and intention.

Katie Stevenson as The Secretary is the opera’s most hateful character in the long run. She is cold as ice, immaculately dressed and as beautiful as Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen. Yet, as the opera continues Stevenson introduces a faint trace of compassion which deepens her character memorably.

The opera, unquestionably, is melodramatic. It is both pot-boiler and hanky-wringer, shamelessly drawing out its heart-breaking moments, of which there are many.

Menotti also introduces an element of the surreal in the second act, by way of the character of Magadoff, a magician and hypnotist. Frustrated with being ignored by the Secretary after trotting out his best magical party tricks, he avenges his feelings of rejection, a parody of Magda’s, by hypnotizing all the people in the Consul’s waiting room and making them dance a waltz with phantom partners.

Even as you try to puzzle out what this scene is doing here, you realize that it is a plant, a preparation for the shamelessly melodramatic ending. At this point, Magda has just turned on the gas and put her head in the oven and we understand she is hallucinating in the moments before she dies.

All the characters from the waiting room return to take part in the final chorus, which of course is the blatantly transparent reason for the introduction of Magadoff in the second act.

Sure enough, Magda hears the telephone ringing and dies trying to reach it. We know from the previous scene that it is the Secretary calling to tell her that John had been caught in the Consul’s waiting room and been taken off by police..

It is not spoiling anything to tell you this, since it is all covered in the synopsis of the printed program.

Bottom line: this is a very good student production of a melodramatic score, made topical by the U.S. Homeland Security Act.

Consul cast equal to challenge
Oatway ate show-stopping solo alive in a
By STEPHEN PEDERSEN Arts Reporter
Sun. Jul 27 - 7:59 AM

[Magda (Judith Oatway) confronts the Secret Police Agent (Greg Wagland) in Menotti’s The Consul. The Consul will be performed July 28 and 31 and Aug. 2 in the Dunn Theatre at 7:30 p.m. The opera has two casts with different singers on July 28 and Aug. 1.

]

Magda (Judith Oatway) confronts the Secret Police Agent (Greg Wagland) in Menotti’s The Consul. The Consul will be performed July 28 and 31 and Aug. 2 in the Dunn Theatre at 7:30 p.m. The opera has two casts with different singers on July 28 and Aug. 1.

I have to say at the start that Gian-Carlo Menotti is not one of my favourite composers. Especially in versions of his operas that, for want of funds, have to be accompanied by piano rather than orchestra. His orchestrations add a dimension to his music that softens its angularity and rounds off its sharper corners.

However, pianist Tara Morton, the musical director of Halifax Summer Opera Workshop, whose production of Menotti’s The Consul opened in the Dunn Theatre Friday night, is a first-rate accompanist. Her tempos are alert, her playing bold and ideally clear, her contribution not just important but indispensable.

The story is a mix of 20th century paranoia and bitterness at the heartlessness of bureaucracy. . Magda Sorel’s husband John, an outspoken critic of a middle-European totalitarian regime, is shot while running from the police. He hides out in the mountains, but refuses to cross the frontier until Magda, his infant son, and his mother can leave with him.

But Magda’s attempts to get exit visas are frustrated by bureaucracy in the person of The Secretary. Magda goes to see the consul, supposedly the American consul, but The Secretary’s often repeated refrain is he is too busy, come back tomorrow.

Magda and John’s baby is ill and needs medical attention outside the country. In any case, he dies before the end of the first act. Heartbroken and filled with anxiety, Magda waits to see the consul, implores the Secretary, and dreads that John will come back and be arrested and charged with treason.

The closest Magda gets to The Consul is an assurance that she can see him as soon as his important guest leaves. The guest turns out to be the head of the secret police.

Menotti is a master of dramatic effect. There are at least three show-stopping musical set pieces in The Consul. The first is an intense, forceful trio full of angst and passion sung by Magda, John and the Mother. The second is the Mother’s lullaby to the dying child, sung effectively by Oriana Dunlop.

The third is Magda’s well-known second act aria, To This We’ve Come. Soprano Judith Oatway ate this one alive, creating the opera’s most powerful moment with the intensity and force of her passion.

John, who is the most important person in the Sorel family, is not the focus of the opera, but Alfred Stockwell plays the character with the right amount of focus and intention.

Katie Stevenson as The Secretary is the opera’s most hateful character in the long run. She is cold as ice, immaculately dressed and as beautiful as Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen. Yet, as the opera continues Stevenson introduces a faint trace of compassion which deepens her character memorably.

The opera, unquestionably, is melodramatic. It is both pot-boiler and hanky-wringer, shamelessly drawing out its heart-breaking moments, of which there are many.

Menotti also introduces an element of the surreal in the second act, by way of the character of Magadoff, a magician and hypnotist. Frustrated with being ignored by the Secretary after trotting out his best magical party tricks, he avenges his feelings of rejection, a parody of Magda’s, by hypnotizing all the people in the Consul’s waiting room and making them dance a waltz with phantom partners.

Even as you try to puzzle out what this scene is doing here, you realize that it is a plant, a preparation for the shamelessly melodramatic ending. At this point, Magda has just turned on the gas and put her head in the oven and we understand she is hallucinating in the moments before she dies.

All the characters from the waiting room return to take part in the final chorus, which of course is the blatantly transparent reason for the introduction of Magadoff in the second act.

Sure enough, Magda hears the telephone ringing and dies trying to reach it. We know from the previous scene that it is the Secretary calling to tell her that John had been caught in the Consul’s waiting room and been taken off by police..

It is not spoiling anything to tell you this, since it is all covered in the synopsis of the printed program.

Bottom line: this is a very good student production of a melodramatic score, made topical by the U.S. Homeland Security Act.