Theatre Review: A disappointing "Les Misérables" opens the 2024 Muny season

First things first: I love the 1985 French opera/musical “Les Misérables.” Based on Victor Hugo’s justifiably popular 1862 novel of the same name (Upton Sinclair is said to have described it as "one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world"), “Les Misérables” (usually translated as "The Outsiders" or "The Dispossessed") is, in my view, one of the most effective pieces of musical theatre of the late 20th century.

L-R: John Riddle, Ken Page, Cecilia Snow
Photo: Philip Hamer

From the opening prisoners' chorus through the sublime finale three hours later, the show's canny combination of a conventional but memorable score (music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer) with compelling characters and situations grabs and holds your attention and emotions. Plus, its cry for social justice (which it shares with the novel) and presentation of two sharply contrasting versions of Christianity make it a work that appeals to the head as well as the heart.

Or at least it should. Certainly every one of the four previous productions I have seen since the first tour came through town in the late 1980s has done so. I had hoped the new Muny production, which runs through Sunday June 23rd, would as well.

But, as the Stones song says, “you can’t always get what you want.” On the Muny’s massive stage “Les Misérables” felt diminished. Even in a large house like the Fabulous Fox (capacity around 5,000) the show has an immediacy and emotional power that felt dissipated in the open-air theatre with over twice the seating capacity of that theatre, not counting the 1500 free seats at the back. The big ensemble scenes such as the Act I finale “One More Day” and the normally harrowing battle at the barricades lacked their usual punch, and the intimate moments (the deaths of Fantine and Éponine come to mind) felt lost.

L-R: Jordan Donica, John Riddle
Photo: Philip Hamer

Ann Beyersdorfer’s scenic design doesn’t improve matters. The main set pieces, including the usual rotating structure on the turntable, are all bare-bones ladders and stairs. Everything looks unfinished and everything looks the same. That could have been ameliorated by making more use of the Muny’s projection capabilities, especially in scenes like the Paris sewers sequence and Javert’s suicide. The latter was especially bizarre, with Javert turning and walking upstage into a bright light instead of throwing himself into the Seine.

But apparently Beyersdorfer and director Seth Sklar-Heyn wanted a stripped down minimal look, so that’s what we got. In fact, some of the more intimate scenes take place on a bare stage, robbing them of much of their power.

But enough of that.  Let’s talk about what works: Jesse Robb’s choreography and the cast. The former perfectly matched the emotional content of every scene and the latter was uniformly great.

Teal Wicks
Photo: Philip Hamer

John Riddle, a St. Louis Theater Circle award winner from last season’s “Chess,” is Jean Valjean, the ex-convict serving time for stealing bread for his starving family. He eloquently captures the character’s pain at the persecution he suffers after his parole, his change of heart after being shown mercy by the Bishop of Digne (a warmly sympathetic Ken Page), and his fierce determination to fight injustice. His voice is powerful almost to the top of its range and his acting is always convincing.

Jordan Donica is Valjean’s nemesis Javert—inflexible, fixated on sin, and convinced he’s doing God's duty by punishing the wicked. Donica’s “Stars,” Javert’s declaration of that belief, is powerful and a bit frightening, as it should be. He and Riddle are a good match, vocally and physically.

Emily Baustista
Photo: Philip Hamer

Teal Wicks is a vulnerable and moving Fantine, for whose early death Valjean is an unwitting catalyst. Emily Bautista is Éponine, dying of unrequited love for the student Marius and, eventually, from a National Guard bullet. Her “On My Own” was a true star turn, enthusiastically applauded by the audience.

Peter Neureuther’s Marius is a bit on the monochromatic side, but his Act II “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” in which he laments the deaths of this fellow radicals at the barricades, was quite well done. As his true love Cosette, adopted by Valjean as a deathbed promise to her mother Fantine, Gracie Annabelle Parker is a model of the clear-voiced, winsome heroine.

L-R: Noah Van Ess, Dan Klimko,
Peter Neureuther
Photo: Philip Hamer

Red Concepción and Jade Jones are the comically reprehensible Thénardier and Madame Thénardier, shameless champions of enlightened self-interest. They’re played just broadly enough to be funny, and they do it consistently. Alas, some of their best lines were garbled by the Muny’s sound system—a problem for much of the evening.

There are two important children’s roles in “Les Misérables”: Little Cosette and the streetwise Gavroche. As Little Cosette, Kate Appel is utterly charming in her solo “Castle on a Cloud.” As Gavroche, Will Schulte is astonishingly good. He steals every scene he’s in with his strong stage presence and fine voice.

Will Schulte and the company
Photo: Philip Hamer

The decision to add members of the St. Louis Symphony Chorus to the big ensemble numbers gives those moments impressive power, but even their famously clear enunciation can’t get past that sound system. I’m beginning to think the Muny (and possibly the Fox) should consider following Opera Theatre’s lead by using projected text.

Under the baton of Music Director James Moore, the orchestra sounded polished and powerful. And while I don’t think much of director Sklar-Heyn’s design choices, he certainly keeps the show moving and creates fine stage pictures.

John Riddle, Gracie Annabelle Parker
Photo: Phlilip Hamer

If you have never seen “Les Misérables” I doubt that this production will make you a fan. And if you’re already a fan, I suspect you might feel as disappointed as I did. Still, the message is one we all need to hear.

“The Christian ideal,” wrote G.K. Chesterton in 1910, “has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Certainly both Victor Hugo’s novel and the musical based on it are testaments to how difficult it is, while our current political culture seems to demonstrate what happens when it’s left untried. I’d like to believe that a show like “Les Misérables” can change hearts and minds, but given the infinite human capacity for compartmentalization and denial, I’m not sanguine about that notion.

“Les Misérables” continues at the Muny in Forest Park nightly at 8:15 through Sunday. For information on this and upcoming productions, visit the Muny web site.

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

Opera Review: OTSL and Puccini make beautiful music together in "La bohème"

When Puccini’s “La bohème” premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1896 (with Arturo Toscanini at the podium, no less) the public and critical reception was lukewarm. That changed quickly as productions became more widespread, and it’s now a favorite of companies around the world.  Opera Theatre’s current production is the seventh in their 49-year history. It might not be their best, but it certainly has its merits.

L-R: Moisés Salazar, Titus Muzi III, Robert Mellon
Thomas Glass, André Courville 
Photo: Eric Woolsey

For those of you who have missed being exposed to Henri Murger’s episodic 1851 novel “Scènes de la vie bohème” (“Scenes from Bohemian Life”) or Puccini’s opera or Jonathan Larson’s 1996 rock musical adaptation “RENT,” here’s a quick plot summary. On Christmas Eve, the poet Rodolfo, the painter Marcello, the philosopher Colline, and the musician Schaunard are young, creative, broke, and burning some of their work to heat their squalid Parisian apartment. Enter the equally poverty-stricken seamstress Mimi, whose candle has gone out, leaving her stuck in the stairwell. Before the first act is over, she and Rodolfo are smitten. The opera chronicles the highs and tragic lows of both their relationship and that of Marcello and the singer Musetta. Mimi dies (of consumption, as tragic heroines were wont to do in the 19th century), Musetta doesn't, and nobody lives happily ever after.

L-R: Moisés Salazar, Katerina Burton
Photo: Eric Woolsey

Opera Theatre can generally be relied upon to cast strong singers and have done so here. Former Gerdine Young Artist Moisés Salazar, whose robust tenor served him so well in 2021’s Center Stage Showcase, displays that same power here as Rodolfo. He’s a good match for fellow GYA alumna Katerina Burton, whose lyric soprano has just the right sense of sweetness to offer a pleasing contrast, without being overwhelmed by Salazar. Their justly famous Act I love scene—Rodolfo’s “Che gelida manina,” Mimi’s “Mi chiamano Mimi,” and the duet “O soave fanciulla”—had a kind of childlike innocence, if not a great deal of adult passion.

L-R: Thomas Glass, André Courville,
Brittany Renee, Katerina Burton, Moisés Salazar
Photo: Eric Woolsey

That offered a sharp contrast to the openly fraught affair of Marcello and Musetta, who like Lois in “Kiss Me, Kate” is “always true to you, darling, in my fashion.” As sung and acted by baritone Thomas Glass (an outstanding Harvey Milk in 2022) and soprano Brittany Renee, both characters felt like full-blooded (if excessively self-dramatizing) adults while Rodolfo and Mimi came across as children playing dress-up. I’m not sure that’s the best way to underline the difference between the two couples, but it does have the advantage of explaining Rodolfo’s jealous rages as mere acts of jejune petulance.

Glass and Renee both have full, robust voices that allow them to project clearly over the crowd in the Café Momus scene. Renee, in particular, radiates a sultry assurance that serves her character well, especially in her show-stopping “Quando m’en vo” (a.k.a. “Musetta’s waltz”).

Bass-baritone André Courville makes an impressive OTSL debut as Colline, providing one of the more moving moments in “Vecchia zimarra,” his tearful Act IV farewell to the faithful old coat he plans to pawn for medicine for the dying Mimi. Baritone Titus Muzi III, who was such a wonderfully fussy Sacristan in “Tocsa” last season, scores again as Schaunard, with his outrageous tale of being hired to sing the role of a rich man’s parrot.

L-R: Thomas Glass, Titus Muzi III, 
Moisés Salazar, André Courville
Photo: Eric Woolsey

Even the smallest parts in this production have been filled by performers who can boast of considerable vocal and dramatic strength. Witness baritone Robert Mellon—an outstanding Figaro in Union Avenue’s “Il barbiere di Siviglia" in 2021 and an equally remarkable title role in the same company’s “Falstaff” in 2022. Here, he creates a pair of memorable clowns in the roles of the easily befuddled landlord Benoit and Musetta’s hapless sugar daddy Alcindoro, who is stuck with the bill at the end of the Café Momus scene.

Director Michael Shell’s decision to move the action to 1950 and to change the color scheme from technicolor in the Puccini’s Acts I and II to a grim grayscale in acts III and IV doesn’t seem to add much, but neither does it subtract. Besides, I tend to remember the 1950s as being in black and white (in more ways than one), in any case. His direction generally does a good job of keeping focus where it should be and only comes up short in the final moments of the massive Café Momus scene, which has often been an issue for OTSL’s relatively small stage.

Puccini’s intention in that scene was to portray the rich panoply of Parisian street life at Christmas time. As Michele Girardi writes in Gove Online, he achieved that by stacking up “numerous events, entrusting them to small choral groups and soloists, and ensuring appropriate timing and cuts from one scene to another which are almost film-like in their lightning rapidity.” If the stage becomes too crowded, there’s not enough space for the audience to hear to small groups properly, and it all becomes visual and sonic clutter—as it did on opening night.

Katerina Burton, Moisés Salazar
Photo: Eric Woolsey

“Puccini,” writes conductor José Luis Gómez in his program notes, “offers the conductor and orchestra a chance to support the singers…but to also be a clear protagonist in the entire drama.” His wonderfully sympathetic reading of the score demonstrates that consistently, especially in places (like the wintry beginning of Puccini’s Act III) in which the composer’s tone painting vividly evokes a frigid February dawn at the city gates. It’s a fine performance, exquisitely played by members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. It’s also the perfect complement to Takeshi Kata’s sets, Amanda Seymour’s costumes, and Marcus Doshi’s lighting.

If you’re a fan of “La bohème” you’ll probably find much to admire in Opera Theatre’s latest presentation of it, which runs through June 30.. If, like me, you can take it or leave it, I doubt this will change your mind.

Performances of “La bohème” are sung in English with English supertitles and take place on the main stage at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus in Webster Groves. Run time is around two and one-half hours, including an intermission between acts II and III. For more information on this and the other three operas in the 2024 season, visit the Opera Theatre web site.

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

Opera Review: New World orders

Victor Herbert's 1910 operetta "Naughty Marietta" got quite a fine production the weekend of March 1 by Winter Opera St. Louis. With a new book by Ball State University’s David Taylor Little (to replace Rida Johnson Young's convoluted and somewhat racist original), this New and Improved "Naughty Marietta" was rather like a bag of Cheez-Its: I knew it was junk food but it sure was tasty.

Brittany Hebel
Photo: Peter Wochniak

Winter Opera has had a pretty good track record of reviving classic operettas that simply aren't being done these days. Their 2016 "Merry Widow" was spectacular, and their 2017 "Student Prince" was great fun. This "Naughty Marietta" was right up there with those two, boasting a Grade A cast of strong singers who could also act and knew how to handle comedy.

Soprano Brittany Hebel was the titular Marietta, a Neapolitan Countess on the run from an unwanted marriage and hiding her real identity in 1780 New Orleans. In 1910 the role was sung by Emma Trentini, a petite soprano with an outsized voice. Hebel was very much in the same mode in terms of height and vocal chops. The lead soprano in fin de siècle operetta was typically a role that called for solid top notes and vocal flexibility (think Mabel in “Pirates of Penzance”). Hebel showed the latter to great effect in the famous “Italian Street Song” with its high-flying melodic line and pseudo-coloratura ornamentation.

Melanie Ashkar and
Zach Devin
Photo: Peter Wochniak

Tenor Zachary Devin was another vocal powerhouse as the stolid Captain Rick Warrington, head of the local militia, who is smitten with Marietta but loath to admit it. His clear, soaring voice rang out easily over the male chorus in “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,”  and his performance had just the right “Dudley Do-Right” touch to make his Rick the perfect foil for the twinkling-eyed mischievousness of Hebel’s Marietta.

Bass-baritone Michael Colman was a wonderfully villainous Etienne Grandet, the son of the governor and secretly the dreaded pirate Bras Pique. His character’s only real solo, “You Marry a Marionette,” isn’t much of a song but his performance was such an attention grabber that it was wildly applauded.

Mezzo-soprano Melanie Ashkar provided effective dramatic weight as Adah, the woman Grandet has wronged, in the ballad “Under the Southern Moon”. Her voice had the rich, sultry quality the role required.

Michael Colman
Photo: Peter Wochniak

There are some great supporting comic roles in “Naughty Marietta,” and they were played by great comic singers. Tenor Marc Schapman, a familiar figure on local opera stages, was wonderfully fatuous as the Simon O’Hara, the least stalwart member of Captain Rick’s band. Baritone Gary Moss was a delight as the puppeteer Rudolfo, who helps hide Marietta’s identity, and baritone Joel Rogier’s fine voice and comic timing enhanced the part of Rick’s lieutenant, Sir Harry Blake.

Soprano Grace Yukiko Fisher was thoroughly winning as the woebegone Lizette, a “casquette girl” (a program the libretto confuses with the less exploitative “Filles du Roi” from the previous century) wooed and scorned by the feckless O’Hara. Happily, she ends up paired off with the admirable Sir Harry. Rounding out this consistently top-flight cast were Jessica Barnes, Caitlin Haedeler, and Emily Moore.

John Stephens and Mark Ferrell provided the fine stage and musical direction, respectively, and Scott Loebl once again put together a set that looked great and made maximum use of the relatively small stage at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center. Kudos as well to Jen Blum-Tatara for the colorful period costumes.

The ensemble
Photo: Peter Wochniak

Operetta is a sadly neglected art form these days, at least locally. Even Gilbert and Sullivan are rarely performed, and when they are it’s invariably one of the Big Three (“Mikado,” “Pinafore,” or “Pirates”). So thanks again to Winter Opera for giving us a glimpse of the kind of entertainment that used to light up the stage a century ago.

Besides, who doesn’t like a nice bag of snack food now and then?

“Naughty Marietta” concluded Winter Opera’s 17th season, but they have some special events coming up; see their web page for details.

Opera Review: Tomorrow's opera stars take Center Stage at Opera Theatre

Tuesday night (June 20th) Opera Theatre of St. Louis presented the eighth edition of its justly celebrated “Center Stage” concert. Travel plans obliged us to miss last year’s edition, so I was looking forward to this annual showcase of opera and musical theatre selections performed by the Richard Gaddes Festival Artists and Gerdine Young Artists backed up by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under the baton of OTSL Principal Conductor Daniela Candillari.

L-R: Maria Consamus, Anastasia Malliaras
in "We are Women"
Photo: Jessica Flanigan

I was not disappointed, to put it mildly. This was, once again, a tremendously entertaining evening, with a wide variety of music and excellent performances all the way around.

But first, a bit of background. Gerdine Young Artists is an intensive nine-week professional development program for rising young singers that includes master classes, extensive vocal coaching, and performances in both the OTSL chorus as well as in supporting roles in the festival season.

Admission is highly selective. This season there were over 1200 applicants, of whom only 33 made it into the program. Two of them—soprano Amani Cole-Felder and mezzo Elissa Pfaender—were also named Gaddes Festival artists, an honor reserved for “exceptionally remarkable young singers.” If you saw Cole-Felder in “Treemonisha” or Pfaender in “Susannah,” that will probably come as no surprise.

With 22 numbers and a two and one-half hour run time (including intermission) the evening was a long one. But there was so much musical variety and so many strong performances that I hardly noticed. Working in the limited space in front of the orchestra on the Loretto-Hilton stage, directors Claire Choquette, Dian Machin, Ian Silverman, OTSL Artistic Director James Robinson, and Young Artists Artistic Director Patricia Racette provided just enough staging for dramatic context while still moving the evening along at a fast pace.

Daniela Candillari and the SLSO
Photo: Jessica Flanigan

There were so many wonderful numbers that I can’t possibly list them all, so I’ll limit myself to the ones I found especially striking—starting with the first few items on the program.

The SLSO kicked off the festivities with a rousing performance of the overture to Mikhail Glinka’s 1842 fairy tale opera “Ruslan and Lyudmila.” The opera is rarely seen but the overture, with its rapid-fire melodic exchanges and neat solo tympani part, is a popular concert item. The relatively dry acoustic of the Loretto-Hilton Center guaranteed that every note could be heard with a precision that would have been hazardous to an ensemble less polished than the SLSO. In this case, it just highlighted their virtuosity.

Up next was the opening scene from another fairy tale opera, Dvořák’s “Rusalka” (1900). In a bit of comedy reminiscent of the first scene of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” (like many composers of the late 19th century, Dvořák could not entirely escape Wagner’s shadow) a trio of mischievous wood nymphs (sopranos Anastasia Malliaras and Nina Evelyn Anderson plus mezzo Pfaender) taunt the hapless Water Gnome (a dryly comic performance by bass-baritone Keith Klein) before dashing off and leaving him to shrug his shoulders at being had. This being Dvořák and not Wagner, the teasing isn’t mean-spirited, the Water Gnome doesn’t swear revenge, and the music is infused with spirited Slavonic dance rhythms.

L-R: Olivia Johnson, Victoria Lawal
in "Uzh vechher"
Photo: Jessica Flanigan

The mood then turned lyrical with “Uzh vecher,” from Act I Scene 2 of Tchaikovsky’s 1890 tragedy “Pique Dame” (a.k.a. “The Queen of Spades”), in which the heroine Liza (soprano Victoria Lawal) and her friend Pauline (mezzo Olivia Johnson) stroll in the garden and reflect on the beauty of the countryside.

The voices of the singers blended beautifully, creating a pastoral interlude before the next outbreak of comic hijinks, “Mi volete fiera? / Vado corro” from Donizetti’s 1834 opera buffa “Don Pasquale.” In it, the young widow Norina (played to the comic hilt by soprano Melissa Joseph) and Dr. Malatesta (baritone Titus Muzi III, ditto) plot their revenge on the titular Don, who obstinately stands between the union of Norina and the Don’s nephew Ernesto.

And so it goes, with a perfect blend of comedy and drama for the rest of the evening. In addition to the usual duets and trios there were two splendid and sharpy contrasting sextets: the rarely heard “Ice Cream Sextet” from Kurt Weill’s 1947 opera/musical “Street Scene” (done splendidly by OTSL in 2006) and the famous “Chi mi frena in tal momento” from Act II of Donizetti’s 1835 “Lucia di Lammermoor”—a number so well-known that even the Three Stooges and the Warner Brothers cartoon crew knew they could make fun of it without losing the audience.

L-R: Victoria Lawal, Joseph Park, Adam Catangui,
Rachel Berg, Chancelor Barbaree, Maria Consumas
In the "Ice Cream Sextet"
Photo: Jessica Flanigan

Both sextets are classic examples of the form, in which each character expresses their own unique thoughts on the topic at hand while blending with the others in an elaborate web of vocal counterpoint. In “Lucia,” that topic is the supposed betrayal of Edgardo by Lucia, and the tone is one of shock and outrage. In “Street Scene” it’s all about the glories of the local drugstore lunch counter in general and ice cream in particular, and the tone is one of unbridled (not to say giddy) joy. Under James Robinson’s direction, the members of both ensembles delivered the goods perfectly.

The ”Lucia” ensemble consisted of tenors Ajit Persaud and Namarea Randolph-Yosea as the aggrieved Edgardo and Arturo, respectively, baritone Chancelor Barbaree as Lucia’s manipulative brother Enrico, bass Casey Germain as the chaplain Raimondo, mezzo Gabriela Linares as handmaid Alisa, and soprano Kathleen O’Mara in the starring role of the troubled Lucia. I have nothing but praise for all of them but feel that I must also congratulate O’Mara for an equally compelling Marguerite in the dramatic final trio from Gounod’s “Faust” only two numbers later.

Comedy is at least as demanding as tragedy, though, so I must heap many scoops of praise on the “Street Scene” ensemble: tenor Adam Catangui as the wildly enthusiastic Lippo (the star spot), soprano Victoria Lawal as Mrs. Fiorentino, mezzos Maria Consamus and Rachel Berg as, respectively, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Olsen, bass-baritone Joseph Park as Mr. Olsen, and baritone Barbaree in the much more benevolent role of Mr. Jones.

L-R: Erin O'Rourke, Xiao Xiao
in "Rodelina"
Photo: Jessica Flanagan

No Center Stage concert would be complete without some spectacular choruses, of course. Act I closed with the highly charged ballroom scene from Act II Scene 1 of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” in which an absurd argument between Lensky (tenor Jeremiah Tyson) and his friend Onegin (baritone Yazid Gray) about the latter’s flirtation with the former’s fiancée Olga (mezzo Hannah Jeané Jones) escalates into a challenge to a duel, to the horror of Tatiana (soprano Alexandria Crichlow), Larina (mezzo Olivia Johnson), and the ensemble of party guests. It all built to the sort of tremendous musical climax that Tchaikovsky did so well, sung and played with overwhelming power by the chorus and the orchestra.

The evening concluded with an equally potent but far more upbeat night club scene from Act II of Puccini’s “La Rondine” in which the worldly Magda (O’Mara in fine form once again) and her naïve lover Ruggero (tenor Camron Gray) join the poet Prunier (Catangui) and his off again/on again petite amie Lisette (Malliaras) in a joyous toast to love, along with the rest of the ensemble. The opera itself is a bit of a mess, but the sheer ebullience of this scene is always irresistible—as it was on Tuesday night.

Other memorable bits included the delightful duet “We are Women” (from the 1989 version of Bernstein’s “Candide”) with Malliaras and Consamus, the charming “Duo de amor No. 3” from Daniel Catán’s 2010 opera “Il Postino” with tenor César Andrés Parreño as the titular postman Mario and soprano Erin O’Rourke as his soon-to-be bride Beatrice, and the touching farewell scene from Handel’s 1725 opera seria “Rodelina” in which Queen Rodelina (O’Rourke) bids a tearful farewell to her deposed husband Bertardio (mezzo Xiao Xiao in what was, in Handel’s time, a castrato role).

L-R: Amani Cole-Felder, Shavon Lloyd

in "Wheels of a Dream"
Photo: Jessica Flanigan

Other outstanding performers included mezzos Kaswanna Kanyinda and Rachel Barg, sopranos Chase Sanders and Leila Kirves, tenors Yuntong Han and River Guard, and baritone Kellen Schrimper. A shout-out is due as well to Cole-Felder as Sarah and Shavon Lloyd as Coalhouse in “Wheels of a Dream” (from Flaherty an Ahrens’s “Ragtime”). The balance with the band could have been better, but I really love that show and that song.

Not everyone was equally strong in every number and, as noted above, the orchestra sometimes overwhelmed the singers, but I don’t expect perfection from professionals in the early stages of their careers. Besides, the Center Stage evening is, at least in my view, as much a celebration of the future of opera as it is an homage to its past. A whale of a good time was had by all, both on stage and off, and that’s what counts.

If you missed this year’s event you can still, fortunately, see many of these performers in this season’s four operas, all of which have their final performances this Friday through Sunday, June 23–25. For more information, visit the Opera Theatre web site.

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

Opera Review: In bad faith

Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s new production of Puccini’s 1900 political tragedy “Tosca” is the third in the company’s history and the first in 20 years. This new version, under the direction of company Artistic Director James Robinson, boasts an excellent cast and a sympathetic, finely shaped reading of the score by members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra led by the outstanding Daniela Candillari. It is marred only by a couple of cases of self-indulgent excess by Robinson.

Robert Stahley
Photo: Eric Woolsey

More on that later, though. Let’s start with the good news, beginning with bass-baritone Hunter Enoch’s superb performance as the repellent Baron Scarpia. A classic sociopath consumed with lust and sadism, Scarpia is a textbook case of how an elaborate display of public piety can be a false front for a rotten soul. Moreover, his position as the chief law enforcement officer of the Roman theocracy makes him an ideal advertisement for the wisdom of the separation of Church and State.

Enoch makes Scarpia the villain you love to hate. With a big, ringing voice and a magnetic stage presence, Enoch gives us a Scarpia who, like Zoltan Karpathy, “oils his way across the floor” when he enters at the end of Act I. He exudes smug piety while plotting to use Tosca’s passionate attachment to her lover, the painter Cavaradossi, to betray both him and the escaped political prisoner Angelotti, with tragic results for all concerned. When Tosca cuts Scarpia’s throat with a razor (as opposed to the knife Puccini and his librettists intended) at the end of Act II it is (as Patroclus says in “Troilus and Cressida”) “a good riddance.”

Speaking of Tosca, soprano Katie Van Kooten, who has often been praised for her impressive combination of vocal power and delicacy, demonstrates in her sensitive, multi-layered performance just how she earned those accolades. Tosca is, frankly, a character whose combination of excessive jealousy and (for a supposedly experienced singer and actress) astonishing naivete can be a hard sell. But Van Kooten manages it.

Titus Muzi III and cast
Photo: Jessica Flanigan

She doesn’t do it alone, of course. There has to be serious emotional chemistry between Tosca and Cavaradossi to make their dual tragedy convincing. Cynthia Lawrence and Stephen Mark Brown did it in in 2003 and the combination of Van Kooten and tenor Robert Stahley—last seen here as the cheerfully clueless William Marshall in OTSL’s killer “Regina” in 2018—work the same magic here. Stahley has one of those clarion-clear Heldentenor voices that, when combined with Van Kooten’s in their big love duets, delivers an electrifying effect.

The supporting cast is solid as well. As Angelotti, the former consul of the Roman Republic on the run from Scarpia’s goons, bass-baritone Joseph Park is the very picture of the fear-haunted fugitive. Baritone Titus Muzi III is perfection as the comically fussy Sacristan, muttering about “filthy artists” as he steals Cavaradossi’s lunch. And mezzo Xiao Xiao is a charming offstage presence as the Shepherd Boy, whose sad folk song is heard in the distance as the Act III curtain rises on the grim prison of the Castel Sant’Angelo, where both Cavaradossi and Tosca will breathe their last.

L-R: Huner Enoch, Robert Stahley,
Kellen Schrimper, Adam Catangui
Photo: Jessica Flanigan

In his program notes, Director Robinson writes that because of the opera’s “rich historical context” he and his designers “have enthusiastically decided to firmly ground the production in Rome of 1800 and, in a sense, take a page from the original play in terms of its scale.” Later on, however, he adds that he has decided to  “illuminate the story with a nod to those who excelled at dark psychosexual storytelling, such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Luis Buñuel.”

One of these things is not like the other.

If you think that means there will be extensive use of video projections, you’d be right. When they’re used to set the scene (as in Act III) they can be very effective. When they’re used to display pseudo-film noir videos that merely belabor the action on stage, they are less useful, if not downright annoying.

The most irritating example of the latter comes at the end of Act I. As conceived by Puccini, it shows Scarpia plotting the seduction and betrayal of Tosca while the chorus celebrates High Mass. Over the massed sound of the chorus, full orchestra, organ, bells, and drums simulating cannon-fire, Scarpia’s visions of lust rise in sync with the choir’s praise of God. As the Te Deum rises to a climax, Scarpia sings “Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio!” (“Tosca, you make me forget God!). As an example of theatrical irony, it’s hard to beat.

That, however, is not what happens in this production. Instead we get Scarpia alone on stage, clutching and eventually arousing himself sexually with Tosca’s glove while the choir is banished to an offstage presence. We also get slow-motion video closeups of this in the background, presumably to ensure that we Get the Point.

This is not just gratuitous, but openly disrespectful of Puccini’s intentions.  As Julian Buden writes in Grove Online, “Puccini was much concerned with authenticity of detail. His friend Father Pietro Panichelli supplied him with information regarding the plainsong melody to which the Te Deum was sung in Roman churches, the correct order of the cardinal’s procession and the costumes of the Swiss Guard.” All this is swept aside, and the result can hardly be called an improvement.

Katie Van Kooten, Enoch Hunter
Photo: Eric Woolsey

Tosca’s death at the end of Act III is also drained of dramatic impact by relying on self-consciously surreal video, but that is, I suppose, small beer by comparison.

Those two fumbles aside, the directorial and scenic choices generally work quite well, keeping the action tense and character driven. Allen Moyer’s massive, imposing sets are appropriately dark and threatening, and his use of a greyscale color palette with accents of blood red is a nice match for the “old movie” style of Greg Emetaz’s videos.

Overall I’d give this “Tosca” a B, since the positives far outweigh the negatives.

A final note: whether by accident or design, Opera Theatre of St. Louis is presenting two works this season in which the principal villain hides his moral bankruptcy behind a pseudo-Christian façade. In Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah,”  preacher Olin Blitch dominates a small Appalachian church with rants about the “three Ss” (sin, sex, and Satan) while secretly lusting after the innocent title character. In “Tosca,” Scarpia presents a pious image in public while reveling in sexual sadism in private. Either way, the resemblance to certain public figures is hard to miss.

“Tosca” continues in rotating repertory with the rest of the OTSL season through June 25th. Performances are sung in English with English supertitles at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus. For more information, visit the Opera Theatre web site.

Opera Review: Babes in khaki

Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s new production of Mozart’s last and arguably most controversial opera “Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti” (roughly “All women are like that, or the school for lovers”) is the fifth in the company’s history and the third that I have seen. The last two (in 1997 and 2012) were a bit disappointing but I had high hopes for this latest version, based on the insightful program note by director Tara Branham. They were not, sadly, fulfilled.

The cast of Così fan tutte
Photo: Eric Woolsey

A quick look at the story of “Così” shows why this can be a difficult piece to present to a contemporary audience. Two army officers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, are so convinced of the faithfulness of their fiancées—Dorabella and her sister Fiordiligi, respectively—that they accept a bet from their cynical philosopher friend Don Alfonso that the women can't be seduced. Don Alfonso convinces the boys to go away on a mock military expedition and then return in disguise and attempt to seduce each others' fiancées. The usual complications result, helped along by the wily maid Despina. All ends happily, more or less, but only after the disillusioned officers are forced to admit, in the words of Sherlock Holmes, that "women are never to be entirely trusted—not the best of them."

Even in Mozart’s day the story was seen, as Julian Rushton writes at Grove Online, as a “heartless farce clothed in miraculous music” and the opera was not widely performed until the second half of the last century. Ferrando and Guglielmo seem to take an almost sadistic delight at undermining the sisters’ fidelity and display an ugly braggadocio when they do. The “happy ending” in which the couples are reconciled is unusually abrupt and clumsy for Mozart (who usually could be counted up for elegant finales like the one he delivers at the end of the opera’s first act). Attempts to stage it in a way that undercuts the reconciliation have proved no more convincing than the original.

In the program, Branham acknowledges the libretto’s “problematic gender stereotypes,” but appears to grasp one of the opera’s major themes. “Life and love continue,” she writes, “as the experienced Despina and Don Alfonso know all too well. Love will continue to complicate matters for the rest of their lives… Lead with compassion for those experiencing life for the first time, and remember that love is beautiful even when it challenges everything we’ve ever known.”

Inexplicably, none of that keen understanding ever makes it to the stage.

L-R: Angel Romero, John Chest
Photo: Eric Woolsey

A major issue is the decision to set the piece in World War II Britain. Given that “Così” was composed during the Austro-Turkish War of 1788–1791, the idea isn’t a bad one, but Branham makes it the commanding visual image of the work rather than a background element and plot device as it was for Mozart and DaPonte. In the process, key social and power relationships are undone.

Ferrando and Guglielmo become new volunteers instead of professional officers. Don Alfonso is transformed from an old friend and mentor to a recruiting officer. Dorabella and Fiordiligi are changed from somewhat spoiled aristocrats to Red Cross volunteers, their wily maid Despina becomes an Army nurse, and the sisters’ household somehow becomes a hospital ward. When Ferrando and Guglielmo enter in disguise they are wounded American sailors instead of the comically exotic foreigners (think Saturday Night Live’s “wild and crazy guys”) of the original.

Mozart’s opera takes place in a seaside villa far removed from the war. In this version, everybody is in the Army now. It’s W.S. Gilbert’s topsy-turvy world, and it’s a mess.

The saving grace of this production is the high quality of the performances by the cast. As Ferrando and Guglielmo, tenor Angel Romero and baritone John Chest are as effective in their comic posturing as they are in their anger and despair as they realize their conquest campaigns have been just a bit too successful. Chest makes Guglielmo’s Act II aria simultaneously criticizing and praising women (“Donne mie la fate a tanti”/”Ladies, you treat so many this way”) a comic gem and Romero infuses “Fra gli amplessi” (“Very soon now”), the lyrical duet that finally melts  Fiordiligi’s heart, with such anguish that it’s not hard to see why he finally wins her over.

L-R: Megan Moore, Murella Parton
Photo: Eric Woolsey

Soprano Murrella Parton is an utterly convincing Fiordiligi with a spectacular voice to match. “Come scoglio” (“Like a rock”), the famous Act I aria in which she heroically rebukes the advances of the disguised Ferrando and Guglielmo, is a triumph of vocal art. Mozart’s music is challenging, with massive octave-plus leaps and florid decoration, but Parton’s opening night performance was so impressive that it literally stopped the show. Fiordiligi is the one character who genuinely grows in stature during the opera, and Parton made sure that we saw and heard that.

Dorabella emerges sadder but wiser as well, fully coming to terms with her unbridled sensuality. Mezzo Megan Moore communicates that quite effectively in her second act aria “È amore un ladroncello” (“Love is a little thief”). Her rich voice matches Mozart’s sophisticated instrumentation perfectly.

The role of Despina comes to us straight from the commedia dell’arte tradition: the clever and cheerfully sensual maid who runs rings around her employers. Soprano Vanessa Becerra’s comic timing and vocal flexibility serve the part well, making it easy to ignore the absurdity of that uniform. Her impersonation of the fake doctor in Act I, whose fake magnetic therapy miraculously saves the disguised Ferrando and Guglielmo from their fake suicide attempt, is brilliant stuff. And that’s despite the fact that the “magnet” gag (originally a parody of the notorious quack Franz Mesmer) makes no sense in a 20th century setting.

Vanessa Bacerra and magic magnet
Photo: Eric Woolsey

Baritone Hugh Russell, last seen on the OTSL stage in 2017 as the tragically simple-minded Noah Joad in “The Grapes of Wrath,” demonstrates his musical and dramatic range here as the cynical Don Alfonso. He’s funny and ingratiating and handles the character’s patter numbers with aplomb.

Conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson shows a deep understanding of Mozart’s complex musical structure and delivers a perfectly balanced reading of the score. Her performance of the overture was so good that I was able to largely ignore the onstage pantomime in which Don Alfonso bizarrely turns the sisters’ home into a recruiting center. Under her direction the ensemble of St. Louis Symphony Orchestra members plays with all the finesse I have grown accustomed to hearing during the SLSO's regular season.

So: are the musical values of this “Così” exemplary enough to compensate for a wrong-headed directorial concept? In my view, I’m sorry to say, the answer is no. Mind you, there is plenty of slapstick stage action—some of it in scenes where it doesn’t belong—so if that is your thing you might find this entertaining. Many of the audience clearly did on opening night. Otherwise I’d say you can give this one a miss.

Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s “Così fan tutte” runs through June 23rd at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus. Performances are sung in Andrew Porter’s superb English translation with projected English text. For more information, consult the OTSL web site.

[Footnote: the title of this article is a Firesign Theatre reference.]

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.

'Six" brilliantly remixes Tudor history

When Mel Brooks made his now famous comedy “The Producers” back in 1967, the central plot device of a musical comedy based on the life of Hitler was sufficiently absurd to be a joke all by itself.  Since then, though, we’ve had musicals based on Argentinian dictator Juan Peron and his wife (“Evita”), Presidential assassins (“Assassins”), Lizzie Borden (“Lizzie,” premiered locally at New Line Theatre in 2017), and of course, the enticing mix of serial murder and cannibalism at the hands of a barber (“Sweeney Todd”).

[Listen to the original Broadway cast album on Spotify.]

So these days Cole Porter and I would suggest that “Anything Goes.”

Zan Berube as Anne Boleyn
Photo: Joan Marcus

Still, you might think the essentially tragic fates of the six wives of Henry VIII wouldn’t be a sound foundation for a glitzy, small-cast rock musical. If so, you could hardly be more wrong.

Originally written for and performed at Cambridge University in 2017 by students Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, the musical “Six” went on to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Arts Theatre in London’s West End, the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and finally, Broadway—where it copped multiple Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards. Now, finally, the ”Boleyn” USA tour is at the Fabulous Fox through February 5th and local audiences have a chance to find out why “Six” has become an international phenomenon.

The reason why is obvious from the very start. A measure or two of “Greensleeves” (the old folk tune frequently and incorrectly attributed to Henry VIII) quickly gives way to a bass drone and ominous drum thwacks from the onstage band (the appropriately named Ladies in Waiting). Then the six ex-wives, in a moment reminiscent of “The Cellblock Tango,” deliver one-word summaries of their fates: “divorced” (Catherine of Aragon), “beheaded” (Anne Boleyn), “died” (Jane Seymour), “divorced” (Anna of Cleves), “beheaded” (Katherine Howard), “survived” (Catherine Parr).

Amina Faye as Jane Seymour
Photo: Joan Marcus

Finally the lights come up on the slick, high-tech set and the Six, decked out in sparkling, mock-Tudor outfits, launch into the defiant “Ex-Wives,” the first of nearly a dozen irresistible “earworms” that blend rock, hip-hop, Latin, and pop ballad elements to produce a witty, inventive, and tuneful remix of Tudor history.

The premise of “Six” is that Henry’s ex-wives have returned as contemporary pop/rock divas. They can’t decide who should lead their new group, though (divas are like that), so they’ll tell their own stories in song and the audience will vote on who gets to lead the band based on who got the worst deal from jolly old King Henry.

The problem with that is that they’re still defining themselves in terms of Henry. And that, as they triumphantly sing in the last number, stops now:

We're one of a kind
No category
Too many years
Lost in his story
We're free to take
Our crowning glory
We're SIX!

Tercia Marie as Anne of Cleves
Photo: Joan Marcus

They’ve come a long way, baby. And they’re portrayed by six preternaturally talented performers.

Substituting for an ailing Gerianne Pérez, Dance Captain Cecilia Snow is a bold, assertive Catherine of Aragon. In “No Way,” she makes it plain that Henry’s annulment of their marriage is just the last in a series of outrages. “If you think for a moment / I'd grant you annulment, just hold up / There's no no no no no no no way.” In a sharp contrast, Zan Berube is hilariously clueless as Anne Boleyn, who Marlow and Moss have turned into a pop punk airhead in the ironically titled “Don’t Lose Ur Head.”

Amina Faye’s wounded but resilient Jane Seymour has one of the more emotionally powerful songs in “Heart of Stone.” “You can build me up / You can tear me down” she sings, “You can try but I'm unbreakable.” There’s an unmistakable resemblance to “Unstoppable” by Sia who, along with Adele, is listed in the program as one of the “Queenspirations” for the character.

"The House of Holbein"
Photo: Joan M archs

“House of Holbein,” a hilariously on-point parody of European techno (think Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express”) leads into “Get Down,” in which unforgettable Tercia Marie jubilantly gloats over being “Queen of the castle” despite being cast aside by Henry. Not surprisingly, the Queenspirations for her “I’m too sexy for my crown” attitude are Nicki Minaj and Rihanna.

Aline Mayagoitia has possibly the biggest acting challenge, moving from unapologetic sexy bad girl (“I’m the ten amongst these threes”) to abuse victim in the course of “All You Wanna Do.” At a little over seven and one-half minutes, it’s a chillingly concise mini-tragedy, and Mayagoitia could not be more convincing.

Finally, there’s the inspired and inspirational Catherine Parr of Sydney Parra. Her song, “I Don’t Need Your Love,” begins with a heartbreaking farewell letter to love Sir Thomas Seymour (from whom she had to part because of the arranged marriage with Henry). But it ends with a ringing declaration of her independence from the king (whom she outlived) and a reminder of her individual accomplishments as a writer and education advocate.

Aline Mayagoitia as Catherine Howard
Photo: Joan Marcus

Marlow and Moss have written a score that’s melodically memorable and stuffed with clever rhymes and historical references. The way in which they have recontextualized 16th-century history in a 21st-century rock concert setting is just plain ingenious. In fact, everything about “Six” is a brilliant example of old Tudor wine in new, high-tech bottles, all packaged as a short (under 90 minutes), fast-paced one-act.

Too many newer musicals, in my experience, suffer from theatrical overkill, running just a little too long with just one or two production numbers too many. “Six” is one seamless package with just the right amount of everything.

Sydney Parra as Catherine Parr
Photo: Joan Marcus

The tight, energetic music of the Ladies in Waiting (Katie Coleman, Sterlyn Termine, Liz Faure, and Caroline Moore) keeps the energy level high and Carrie-Anne Ingrouille’s intricate, character-driver choreography creates a torrent of arresting visuals. It also looks demanding to perform, with the actors often moving in tightly packed formations that would give even the late Bob Fosse the fantods. But they carry it off flawlessly.

“Six” will continue to light up the stage at The Fabulous Fox through March 5th. It’s a welcome change of pace from some of the bloated mega-musicals of recent years. Don’t miss it. More information is available at the Fabulous Fox web site.

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