Past Production Reviews
2"The packed theatre witnessed the unnamed protagonists, performed by Erik Larson (baritone), Bridget Cappel (mezzo), Heeseung Chae (baritone), Regina Morgan (soprano), Tim McGowan (tenor) and Helen Hassinger (soprano II), use song, movement, lighting, liminal space and minimal props to create a timeless repertoire that aroused all sensation and crafted a haunting message of isolation and loneliness, even as the chorus was united in song and choreography. Touching upon government corruption, the war against drugs, religion, corporate culture, and the matter of and fallout with war itself, the story line weaved in a transient manner and had a dreamlike quality; the movement shifted with the musical intonations, from urgency to boneless suspension. Characters shuffled through a series of individual conflicts with post-modern facets of daily life, concluding with “Father Death Blues” in an enlightened reverence on death and finality to advance toward literal and figurative light."
Gallic Gesamtkunst it may be, but Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande channels Wagner sans bombast. Last weekend’s clarifying BU Opera Institute production at the Majestic dispensed with the gallimaufry of framing a timeless fairytale in a naturalistic stage picture box while accompanying it with emphatically advanced if highly agreeable music (the initial 14-performance run made money). Aside from an incestuous kiss and a successful murder, so little happens in this most interior of operas that one hardly missed verisimilitudinous depictions of forests, caves, towers, fountains, bedrooms, and maybe a wolf glen for good measure.
