Past Production Reviews
16The staging of the opera in the Cotton Club managed to create a strong sense of immersion and intimacy for the viewer and the minimal space of the "stage" added to the claustrophobic feel of the work. On Site Opera artistic director and co-founder Eric Einhorn and Choreographer George Faison also implemented a number of dances throughout orchestral interludes to give the action a relentless pace.
A recent production at On Site Opera in New York achieved the seemingly impossible. The performance I attended on June 11th was so fresh, original and immediate that, within minutes, it banished any thought of Rossini from my mind.
We were privy to Cleopatra’s in extremis breakdown. And she sang it as if we weren’t there. Amazing. And if the moment before the suicide was not dramatic enough, Ms. Gaissert pulled out a real snake! The live-reptile move definitely helped shake up anybody in the audience who may have drifted off and served to refocus their attention on Cleopatra’s every syllable (and gesture, god forbid she lose her grip on the snake). The scene played out like an Alma-Tadema painting. It had me tingling all over. And left me wanting more.
The evening brimmed with revelations. First, there was the novelty and sense of discovery in encountering the two pieces themselves – each so rich, so compact, so full of drama and compelling musical ideas, and both rendered with energy and virtuosity. Then, there was the gobsmacking experience of having the performers right there at one’s elbow, inches away – Cleopatra’s gown wafting against your shoulder as she passed, Miss Havisham’s old lace perfuming the air as her doleful countenance met yours in a transfixing intimacy.
On Site Opera assembled a terrific cast for the proceedings. Ashley Kerr starred as Violet, growing more and more comfortable vocally as the night proceeded. She was particularly wonderful during the close of the opera during her clinching love scene with Belfiore. Standing only a few feet away from where I was seated, she sang of her growing feelings with a gloriously polished legato and vibrato, her voice floating rather easily throughout the space, wiping out any distractions around. Her characterization of the heroine, while playful also played up her elegance. Even though she was a gardener, her gait suggested her class, particularly when compared to the body language of other characters.
The wildly creative stage director Eric Einhorn has so many tricks up his sleeve that we never know what he will come up with next. Except we do know and we will tell you a bit at the end of this review. The entire premise of On Site Opera is to match the production to an appropriate setting. Regular readers will know exactly what we refer to but others can enter "On Site Opera" into the search bar to fill in their knowledge, lest we repeat ourselves.
At a time when opera companies are struggling to survive, it is thrilling to watch On Site Opera thrive. In spite of high ticket prices, their productions are always sold out. It would appear that the originality of their concept and the deftness of their execution would account for their success. Snagging a ticket almost guarantees a rare and unusual experience.
Mr. Einhorn kept the action flowing in the narrow acting space, flanked by seated audience members and hampered by the small size of the formal garden. Ms. Choi and Mr. Bakari dove deep into their characters, finding real weight in the moment where Murasaki finds her way to a story's end (she sends Genji into exile, and seems relieved) and redemption in the moment where the cad comes back. The singers moved and swirled in their finery, arching over a nimble score that combined the voices of eastern and western instruments to create minimal pulse, kinetic rhythms and always, strong support for the voices of the two leads.
Musically and theatrically, this "Turn of the Screw" started with a sense of unease, and steadily ratcheted up tension.
We have just had an experience that compares with most operagoing experiences as a dinner at La Grenouille would compare with a fine dinner at home. It was way more than delicious and nourishing; it was one of those evenings that will be indelibly etched in our memory. It was Britten's Turn of the Screw performed on the beautiful estate Wave Hill.
On Site Opera revived what one hopes will become an annual production of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. In choosing settings for familiar and unfamiliar operas, On Site adds an intriguing dimension to the form. With Amahl, the location in the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen returns the opera to its original meaning. This is a season which celebrates loving kindness as the heart of the human experience.
Depending on the date and time of your personal performance, you might be connected with Jennifer Zetlan, soprano, or Mario Diaz-Moresco, baritone. David Shimoni and Spencer Myer, respectively, play the piano. Six songs of the cycle are sung in the original German and follow each other in a seamless flow. A sweet monologue in English (by Monet Hurst-Mendoza) reminiscing on our anniversary celebration is added to reinforce the personal connection to the songs.
Strongly delivered—I experienced Diaz-Moresco’s performance accompanied by Myer—the entire work is both stirring and lyrical. A common theme that runs throughout is the yearning to be with the one we love, as well as the need to sometimes seek respite from the world and its travails. Indeed, it’s not hard to feel swept away in a torrent of emotion as the power and passion of the songs come through.
In the music video, baritone Overton, wearing a black and red African-inspired robe (Jessica Jahn and Azalea Fairley’s gorgeous wardrobe designs cast rainbows all over town) strode deliberately through the sacred space, singing to the ghosts of these dead souls: William Grant Still’s elegiac “Grief,” a hymn by Virgil Corydon Taylor, and a hope-filled spiritual. The videos included text captions, made almost superfluous by Overton’s impeccable diction. The baritone’s honeyed tone and silken phrasing largely compensated for the sometimes tinny sound of the piano, and his stoic dignity almost belied the pain of the lyrics.
On Site Opera, dedicated to “the immersive and site-specific experience,” closes out a year of some of the more radical pandemic experiments with The Road We Came: Three Musical Walking Tours Exploring African Americans and Black Music History in New York City. The app-based itineraries take in Lower Manhattan (including the African Burial Ground National Monument), Midtown (from Hell’s Kitchen to the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall), and Harlem (cradle of that creative explosion known as a renaissance). Pop in your earbuds and let the map guide you from landmark to landmark for nutshell commentaries and interludes of song.
It’s Monday evening. I find myself again on the deck of the Wavertree tall sailing ship at South Street Seaport. (I wrote an article about the ship in June.) There is, thank you, a slight breeze. Tonight’s audience sits I n well-spaced, wood folding chairs beneath the open sky and a web of rigging. What Lies Beneath is a site-specific performance of five arias, several with potent spoken word, immersing audience in the maritime connection to America’s unconscionable slave trade, and one aria of Captain Ahab’s final moments of reckoning (Melville’s – Moby Dick) representing moral comeuppance. Though the Wavertree was a cargo ship, its atmosphere is much like those vessels that kidnapped Africans who were then sold into slavery. From vignette to vignette, those attending are moved (after a bosun’s whistle) to a new location on deck by quiet, efficient ushers. Geography is well employed to feature vocalists on several levels. Dramatization is entirely fluid.
