Opera Review: New stars are born at Opera Theatre's second New Works Collectdive

Last week (March 16–18) Opera Theatre of St. Louis unveiled its second annual New Works Collective (NWC).  This year the composer/librettist teams that created the three brand-new 20-minute operas were selected from a pool of 130 applicants by a panel of St. Louis artists, advocates, and community leaders.

We were there on opening night and just like last year I was struck by the originality, theatricality, and musical appeal of these three newly minted one-acts as well as by the high quality of the singing and acting. Five of the eight members of the ensemble were new to me and all were excellent in their roles.

The cast of "Unbroken"
Photo: Phillip Hamer

The program opened with the most conventional of the three, “Unbroken,” with music by Ronald Maurice and libretto by J. Mae Barizo. It’s the story of Grace (Meroé Kahalia Adeeb) and her family coping with her impending death from lung cancer. It hits her oldest son Ezra (John Godhard Mburu) especially hard, since he’s not entirely prepared to carry on as head of the family and to keep their traditions unbroken.

“I don’t know nothing,” he laments. “How to cook / How to carve / How to live / How to love.” But Grace has faith in him (“You know, I taught you”), and everyone in the family has faith in God, and that, along with their mutual love and support for each other, gives them the resilience they need.

All of that was beautifully encapsulated in Scene 2, in which a heartfelt acappella prayer of thanks and hope for “better days” precedes Thanksgiving dinner. There’s just something about hearing seven voices singing complex and pitch-perfect harmony softly but intently that is irresistible.

The second opera, “Mechanisms,” is the most adventurous of the three, with a more “modernist” score by J. E. Hernández and a linguistically complex libretto by Marianna Mott Newirth. Subtitled “A Chamber Opera Study on Neurodiversity,” it centers on Roe (Helen Zhibing Huang), an eleven year old [I thought she was ten]girl whose multiple learning disabilities make life difficult for her family.

L-R: Krysty Swann, Aaren Rivard, Helen Zhibing Huang,
Maria Consamus in "Mechanisms"
Photo: Phillip Hamer

The script briefly shows us her dyspraxia (movement and coordination issues), dysgraphia (difficulty writing), and dyslexia (difficulty reading), but the emphasis is on her synesthesia (seeing colors when, for example, you see shapes or hear music).  Roe experiences the world in general and numbers in particular in terms of colors.  She understands the arithmetic but her need to communicate in terms of color means that she’s failing fifth grade math.. That worries her math teacher father Dean (Aaren Rivard), frightens her mother Lori (Maria Consamus), and angers her teacher Mrs. Waldman (Krysty Swann), who sees Roe as a discipline problem.

The libretto showed how baffling the “normal” world is for her in an unnerving scene set in Mrs. Waldman’s class. The other students sing aggressive nonsense (“Hack–crack / I wanna snack / Backpack / Flapjack / Hackattack”), Mrs. Waldman rattles off numbers too rapidly for Roe to translate them into colors, and Roe finally collapses to the floor as the other students taunt her.

Lighting Designer John Alexander and Video Designer David Murakami did a superb job of letting us see the world as Roe does. When we were in the neurotypical world, everything was in black and white, but when the POV shifted to Roe, the stage came alive with color. In the end, Dean and Lori begin to understand Roe’s world while Roe gains confidence in her ability to navigate theirs. “Color speaks,” she sings happily. “Color teaches. Color has acuity. This is how I know!”

Soprano Helen Zhibing Huang, who did such fine work in OTSL’s “Gianni Schicchi” and “Center Stage Showcase” in 2021, turned in a virtuoso performance in the very demanding role of Roe. She made it easy to suspend disbelief and think of her as a small child.

“Mechanisms” was a work stuffed so full of ideas that it cried out for expansion beyond its 20 minutes. I can easily see it becoming the basis for a full-length work that would allow the relationships between Roe, her family, and the neurotypical world room to be explored in more depth.

L-R: Krysty Swann, Meroé Khalia Adeeb in "On My Mind"
Photo: Phillip Hamer

The evening concluded with the only real comedy of the three, “On My Mind,” with music by Jasmine Arielle Barnes and libretto by Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton. Written in a style reminiscent of contemporary, post-Sondheim musical theatre, it’s the tale of composer Melodee (Adeeb) and poet Lyric (Swann).

They’re black women trying to make it in a field in which they find themselves seriously marginalized. During a professional conference, they also find themselves stereotyped by comically clueless fellow attendees.

Then their eyes meet “across a crowded room,” they instantly bond, and friendship blooms. “Maybe,” they sing in a final duet, “real friends can come after thirty. Maybe sisters just wait till you’re worthy. Maybe love just needs to make its time.”

Stage direction by Kimille Howard was perfection and Darwin Aquino led the small orchestra in exceptional performances of three very different scores.

My only complaint is that OTSL decided not to use projected text, even though the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center has that capability. The tendency of classical trained singers to hit their consonants less clearly as one would like made many of the lyrics incomprehensible, even with story synopses in the program for reference. If it hadn’t been for the librettos that came with my press kit, I would have been lost. Which, based on some conversations I overheard in the lobby, many audience members clearly were.

Once again, OTSL has demonstrated that opera is alive and well in the hands of a new generation of creators. Hope for the future often seems elusive these days. But for a couple of hours on Thursday, at least, it felt like it just might be possible.

Meanwhile, OTSL has a cornucopia of events coming in the St. Louis area, culimating in the opening of the 2024 season on May 25 with Rossini's "The Barber of Seville." More information is available at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis web site.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Opera Review: Rising stars highlight Opera Theatre's 'New Works Collective'

When Opera Theatre of St. Louis (OSTSL) concluded its al fresco 2021 season with the “New Works, Bold Voices Lab,” I opined that they had saved the best for last. The three 20-minute operas by emerging young composers and librettists were a reminder that opera is alive and well and ready for the next generation.

The project was back again this year. Retitled the “New Works Collective,” it ran for three performances March 16 through 18 at the Berges Theatre at COCA. OTSL promotional material described it as “three genre-bending world premiere operas by BIPOC creators” by “multi-disciplinary artists who are new, fresh, and exciting voices in opera.” That they certainly were, but they were also richly imagined, skillfully performed, and hugely entertaining. If this is what the future of opera will look like, all I can say is “bring it on!”

Cook Shack
Photo: Phillip Hamer

The program opened with “Cook Shack,” with music by Del’Shawn Taylor and a libretto by Samiya Bashir. It’s the story of 11-year-old Dayo (soprano Flora Hawk. Bullied by her schoolmates because of her insecurity, she takes refuge in an exhibit at the St. Louis Griot Museum of Black History on black female “Superheroes of Invention”: entrepreneur (and the first Black woman millionaire) Annie Turnbo Malone (soprano Ardeen Pierre), nurse and inventor of the first closed-circuit TV security system Marie Van Brittan Brown (soprano Kimwana Doner-Chandler), and ophthalmologist Dr. Patricia E. Bath (mezzo Olivia Johnson), whose patented Laserphaco Probe was a major advance in cataract surgery.

As she reads about their remarkable lives, their waxwork figures come to life and tell their stories. Their tales of triumph against the odds give Dayo the strength to stand up and recognize her own inner superhero.

Pierre, Doner-Chandler, and Johnson were all vocal powerhouses who imbued their characters with passion, assurance, and in Doner-Chandler’s case, righteous anger at injustice. Hawk made Dayo’s journey from self-effacement to self-assurance completely credible and was quite convincing as a gawky preteen.

Taylor has provided his three protagonists with music that reflects their personalities and their times. It’s not always a good fit for the realistic speech rhythms of Bashir’s libretto, though, making comprehension of that libretto difficult. Projected text would have been a big help here.

Up next was “Slanted: An American Rock Opera” by musician-activists Simon Tam and Joe X. Jiang, founding members of the Asian-American rock band The Slants. The opera is a somewhat surreal depiction of the 2017 Supreme Court case Matal v. Tam in which, without a trace of irony, Tam and his band were accused of engaging in hate speech by using an anti-Asian racial slur as the name for their band. Tam maintained that, as an Asian man himself, he had every right to re-appropriate the word and so defuse it.

Slanted: An American Rock Opera
Photo: Phillip Hamer

The opera follows the simple “ABA” structure of a standard pop song, with opening and closing courtroom arguments bracketing “That’s Not Me,” a long aria in which Tam (tenor Matthew Pearce) laments the way he and his band are being misrepresented by strangers. “Isn’t it just pure irony,” he sings, "That in this court, I’m fighting for freedom of speech / but no / no one can hear me.” Pearce’s clarion-clear head voice added a poignant edge to the character’s plea.

The return to the courtroom brings a repeat of the same rigid, declamatory rhymed couplets from the first section, punctuated by chants of “Free Speech, Hate Speech” by members of the court. Bass-baritone Keith Klein was an imposing Solicitor General here in the opening scene, potently matched by Ardeen Pierre as Tam’s lawyer.

Suddenly Ruth Bader Ginsburg (soprano Dorothy Gal), who has been seated upstage with her back to the audience, swings around. Illuminated by a spotlight, she begins a tender, lyrical solo. “Does it not matter,” Ginsburg asks,  “that they’re taking the sting from the word?... If you think that their speech is a problem, censorship is not the cure.” It was your classic Star Turn, and beautifully sung.

It soon turns into a duet with Tam (“I think I’m in love with a supreme court justice”), which builds into a massive if somewhat didactic hymn in praise of free speech and equal justice: “The constitution protects us all / It doesn’t matter who wrote it.” Finally, Tam is left alone on the stage for a last soliloquy that is both a warning and call to action: “If you only leave your rights to nine / Our books and bodies are on the line.”

Ultimately “Slanted” is agitprop but, as Marc Blitzstein proved decades ago, agitprop can make for powerful musical theatre. It certainly did with “Slanted,” and its message is one that needs to be heard.

The evening concluded with what was, for my money, the strongest of the three works: “Madison Lodge” by St. Louis’s own Tre’von Griffith. Set in 1928 Harlem—the time of the Harlem Renaissance—the story is best summarized by quoting from the program:

“X has just arrived in Harlem after a long trip from their home state of Alabama. When they reach their sister’s house, X explains that they left to find freedom and live their truth. Sister assures X that Harlem is the perfect place to realize those dreams, and hands X an address.”

That address turns out to be the titular Madison Lodge, a “modest-but-grand” drag club where preparations are underway for a masquerade ball. There X (Namarea Randolph-Yosea) meets the flamboyant Club Owner (a bravura performance by baritone Kyle Oliver) and finds out that Sister (Olivia Johnson) is the Drag King, complete with a spectacular white tux, top hat, and cane.

Madison Lodge
Photo: Phillip Hamer

The club is raided by bigoted cops before the show gets off the ground and Sister is arrested. The experience inspires X to find their own identity, and when Sister is finally bailed out by the Club Owner, they discover X performing in a sparkling white gown that parallels Sister’s own outfit. X has embraced Harlem “and even more importantly, has embraced themselves.”

Of the three operas, “Madison Lodge” is the one that most cries out for expansion into a full-length work. The characters have a richness and back stories that could easily be fleshed out in more detail. And it addresses themes of racial and gender identity that are both timely and completely relevant to the Harlem of a century ago. “Black queer folx have felt unseen, unheard, and unprotected,” writes Griffith. “I feel very fortunate to collaborate with our brilliant cast…to share this beautiful story with you.”

How right he is. Randolph-Yosea’s transformation from conflicted teen to confident drag queen was nicely done, and Johnson was a strong, confident presence as Sister. The ensemble of performers from the other two operas was solid dramatically and vocally, while Drag Artists Teonia M. Steele and Vontez Williams added a touch of sinuous authenticity. Congratulations to all.

Darwin Aquino conducted the small but versatile orchestra with assurance and Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj’s direction kept the action clear and focused. Tom Ontiveros’s video designs did a splendid job setting the scenes, although there were times at which the flood of moving images in the background distracted from the drama more than it amplified it.

The same was true of dancers Ka Thomas and Kelly Marsh. Their graceful presence on stage often added visual emphasis but at other times just pulled focus from the singers. Minor quibbles, these, which is why they’re at the end of the review.

Finally: if OTSL plans to present additional shows at the Berges, it should seriously consider dispensing with wireless body microphones and adding projected text capability. It’s even possible that dispensing with the mics might be enough. The kind of singers OTSL employs don’t need them and they just add distortion.

Performances of the “New Works Collective” are history now, of course, but I expect to see more from the talented and innovative team responsible for these three operas. Hope for the future often seems elusive these days. But for a couple of hours last Friday, at least, it felt like it just might be possible.

Opera Theatre’s 2023 season kicks off with "The Road to Freedom," special concert that celebrates the 61st anniversary of the Freedom Riders, followed by a new production of Joplin’s “Treemonisha” on May 20. For season information, visit the OTSL web site.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Opera Review: The omega glory

Tom Cipullo's 2007 opera Glory Denied, which is getting its local premiere through August 24th at Union Avenue Opera, is a difficult piece to watch. That's not because of flaws in the work itself (although it does have a few) and certainly not because the performances of the cast and the orchestra are anything less than perfect.

L-R: David Walton, Peter Kendall Clark
Photo by Dan Donovan

No, Glory Denied is hard to watch because it does such a compelling job of presenting the true story of Col. Floyd James Thompson, the Green Beret whose nine-year ordeal as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese made him the longest held prisoner of war in US history. Subjected to torture (or, as we say in this country, "enhanced interrogation") by his captors, Thompson was eventually returned to the USA, only to find both the country and his life drastically changed.

We see how the seismic shifts in American culture between 1965 and 1973 have left him baffled and angry. Worse yet, his wife Alyce has, after years of vague, content-free letters from the Pentagon, decided to move on with her life and start a new family. "I want what I left," he cries at one point-an impossible desire. An attempt at reconciliation fails, and Thompson is finally left a broken man.

The cast of Glory Denied
Photo by Dan Donovan

Based on the book by Tom Philpott, Mr. Cipullo's libretto sticks closely to things the real-life characters actually said, along with actual documents like letters from the Pentagon, press releases, and even excerpts from the peace agreement that ended the Vietnam War. That gritty realism means that there are no obvious heroes or villains in Glory Denied and no easy answers to the questions the opera raises.

Running around 110 minutes, including intermission, Glory Denied whips back and forth through time and uses an impressive variety of musical styles. There are only four characters: Young Thompson, Old Thompson, Young Alyce, and Old Alyce, although the singers playing them sometimes take on other characters as well.

L-R: Peter Kendall Clark, David Walton,
Karina Brazas, Gina Galati
Photo by Dan Donovan

The kaleidoscopic first act, filled with hard dissonance and complex four-part harmony, details Thompson's abuse at the hands of his captors juxtaposed against Young Alice's sweetly banal letters of home life and Old Alyce's increasingly bitter exchanges with the military. The second act, in contrast, sounds more conventional, with clearly delineated musical numbers offering equally clear cues for applause. Time is less fluid and scenes more conventionally structured. The opera's structure, in short, changes with the narrative.

All this sounds like a real challenge to perform. The wide vocal ranges of the roles and constantly shifting meters of the score would seem to require heroic levels of concentration from the performers-a feeling reinforced by comments by the cast at a post-show talkback on opening night. Fortunately, Union Avenue has a quartet of singers who are more than up to those demands.

David Walton, Karina Brazas
Photo by Dan Donovan

Peter Kendall Clark's Old Thompson is an astonishing achievement. His character goes through Hell, and Mr. Thompson portrays it all with impressive authenticity. "Welcome home," the second-act number in which he reels off an exhaustive list of all the changes in his world, had the staccato aggression of tracer bullets. Most impressive of all, though, was the final scene in which Thompson, forced into retirement by a stroke, wanders around the stage bewildered, drunk, and fuming with resentment over the lack of recognition for his ordeal. Mr. Clark made the character's pain uncomfortably real.

Kudos as well to St. Louis's own Gina Galati as Old Alyce. The lyrical Act II aria "After you hear me out," in which Alyce tries to make Old Thompson understand the difficult changes in her life, was beautifully sung and, like the rest of Ms. Galati's performance, convincingly acted. The character has to make some hard choices, and Ms. Galati insured that the cost of those choices was plain.

As Young Thompson, David Walton's contorted posture in Act I compellingly showed the character's physical torment. His powerfully sung litany of torture contrasted sharply with the sweetly foolish letters from home sung so clearly by Karina Bazas as Young Alice. Together, they were a poignant reminder of what their older selves had lost.

L-R: Peter Kendall Clark, David Walton,
Karina Brazas, Gina Galati
Photo by Dan Donovan

Glory Denied is scored for a small orchestra-nine players in this case. That means every one of the musicians must have the kind of virtuosity and close communication of chamber players. Under Scott Schoonover's expert direction, the small band gave a faultless account of this difficult and mercurial music on opening night. I was especially taken with work of cellist Marcia Irwin and pianist Nancy Mayo in the second-act mini-concerto that underscores a slide show of images from the lives of the Thompsons, along with documentary images from the war.

Director Dean Anthony deserves praise as well for his imaginative staging, in which the playing space becomes more cluttered with documents as the lives of the characters spiral out of control.

That said, Glory Denied ultimately fails as drama for me, even as it succeeds as documentary theatre. It powerfully illustrates the hard choices faced by returning POWs and returning veterans in general, but otherwise has no clear point of view and offers nothing much beyond recognition of that grim reality.

Peter Kendall Clark
Photo by Dan Donovan

Glory Denied is currently one of the most frequently performed American 20th-century operas, but I'm not sure how long its shelf life will be. It captures a moment in American history with great clarity, but some of the historical and cultural references of that moment are already fading. Old Thompson's obsession over not getting a POW bracelet, for example, had to be explained for one younger audience member during the talkback session. Without a broader perspective, the opera risks becoming yesterday's news.

Still, it's worth seeing, if only for the sheer brilliance of the performances and high quality of the craftsmanship of its construction. Glory Denied continues at Union Avenue Opera through Saturday, August 24th, at the Union Avenue Christian Church in the Central West End. It concludes what has been a exceptional 25th anniversary season; I hope there will be many more.

Review: The 'Fire' this time

In the introductory essay to her libretto for Fire Shut Up In My Bones, the operatic treatment of the memoir of the same name by New York Times editor and op-ed columnist Charles Blow getting its world premiere at Opera Theatre through June 29th, playwright Kasi Lemmons tells us that the title refers to the Biblical prophet Jeremiah, who described the word of God as "a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." (Jeremiah 20:9, NIV).

Davóne Tines and Karen Slack
Photo by Eric Woolsey

In the opera, the fire shut up in the young Charles Blow's bones is not the word of God but rather a toxic mix of rage, self-doubt, and emotional need stemming from his early years as the youngest of five boys in a poverty-stricken home in rural Louisiana. Confused by his emerging bisexuality, unable to fully connect with his brothers, and hungry for a degree of affection his overworked mother Billie can't provide, the seven-year-old "Char'es-Baby" is molested by his amoral cousin Chester.

As the opera opens, the young adult Charles is on his way to kill Chester, urged on by the character of Destiny. "Don't hesitate, boy, not for a moment. Chickens must come home to roost." But as Charles's story unfolds in flashbacks, he begins to seriously question that resolve.

The story of Fire Shut Up In My Bones ought to be filled with dramatic urgency, but both Ms. Lemmons's libretto and Terence Blanchard's restless, jazz-inflected score seem to exist at a remove from the characters and the action. The first act, which concludes with Chester's attack on the young Charles, packs a real emotional punch, but the energy seems to dissipate and become somewhat bogged down in the biographical detail of the second and third acts.

Julia Bullock, Jeremy Denis as
Char'es Baby, Davóne Tines
Photo by Eric Woolsey

That said, the work is getting a certified rouser of a presentation by a wonderful cast, including five impressive dancers flawlessly executing Seán Curran's choreography, all under the expert direction of OTSL veteran James Robinson. Bass-baritone Davóne Tines dominates the show as a blindingly intense Charles, contrasting sharply with soprano Karen Slack's harried but loving Billie.

Baritone Markel Reed is a chillingly sociopathic Chester and tenor Chaz'men Williams-Ali is a credibly feckless Spinner, Billie's ne'er-do-well husband. Soprano Julia Bullock is compelling as Greta, who loves and inexplicably leaves Charles. She's also effective in the dual roles of Destiny and Loneliness, although without referring to the libretto it's not always clear which one is which. Others in the cast play multiple roles with remarkable facility.

William Long conducts members of the St. Louis Symphony along with a small jazz combo in what certainly sounds like an authoritative account of Mr. Blanchard's score.

In a June 16th New York Times article , Charles Blow judged Fire Shut Up In My Bones to be "absolutely stunning, musically and visually, as well as in the performances." It didn't have the same effect on me but, as they say, your mileage may vary. Performances are sung in English with projected English text and continue through June 29th at the Loretto Hilton Center on the Webster University campus.