Review: PROTOTYPE vs. CITY OPERA - The King is Not Dead. Long Live a Different King.

It seems ironic--to me at least--that New York's venerable City Opera would be returning to life at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, just as the "Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now" festival was finishing up its run at alternative venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Prototype "unleashed a powerful wave of opera-theatre and music-theatre from a new generation of classical and post-classical composers and librettists"--their words, not mine, but I won't dispute it--while City is doing a warhorse.

Why ironic? I guess it's because City Opera (in conjunction with NYCO Renaissance) is beginning its new life by presenting Puccini's TOSCA as it was done when it was new at the turn of the 20th century, while Prototype is looking for a different language that brings new audiences while still speaking to the old. (Not that City has always looked to the past: It went out with the Thomas Ades-Philip Henscher POWDER HER FACE and the Mark-Anthony Turnage-Richard Thomas ANNA NICOLE, after all, and had a history of doing things like Alberto Ginastera's BOMARZO, which the Met would never have done on a dare.)

Yes, it's good to have City Opera back and I won't dispute the power of TOSCA to hold up after many, many (did I say 'many'?) hearings. But it would have been admirable for the company to be less museum-like and start out with something that hadn't premiered in 1900. Oh well. Never mind. At least we had the fourth annual Prototype to bring us into the 21st century: The two offerings I heard were the Donnacha Dennehy-Enda Walsh opus, THE LAST HOTEL, and the festival's centerpiece, DOG DAYS, by David T. Little and Royce Vavrek.

THE LAST HOTEL

St. Ann's Warehouse, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, presented the American Premiere of THE LAST HOTEL, fairly fresh from its first performances at last summer's Edinburgh Festival, where the same cast (three singers and a silent, manic actor) performed. This chamber opera, running 80 minutes, and concerns a couple who have arrived at a hotel to help a young woman (WOMAN) commit suicide, was fascinating at every turn.

The program gave a blow-by-blow synopsis, to make sure that no audience member was left behind on this domestic battlefield, designed by Jamie Vartan as a kind of boxing ring, with lighting by Adam Silverman. Walsh's portrayal of the characters was reminiscent of his play MISTERMAN (starring Cillian Murphy, which St. Ann's did a couple of years ago, and was just as mysterious); he was also the opera's director and certainly had it well in hand.

Andre de Ridder, who also conducted the premiere in Scotland, drew a propulsive performance of the score, with its insistent beat, often expressing the emotions that the singers are not permitted to utter, through strings, accordion, electric guitar, and heavy percussion. Sound designers David Sheppard and Helen Atkinson did distinctive work, without overpowering the audience.

I found the vocal writing somewhat less compelling than the ensemble work. The Woman, portrayed by the outstanding soprano Claudia Boyle, had the best showcase for her wonderfully flexible voice (which also sings Cunegonde, Konstanze and Lucia, among other, more traditional roles), particularly in her deathbed aria, though we are left wondering about her existential conundrum. As the instruments of death, baritone Robin Adams (HUSBAND) and soprano Katherine Manley (WIFE) brought out the bullishness of the man and the hopelessness of the woman; he often seemed to make fun of the score while she brought out the character's ambivalence. As the mute PORTER, Mikel Murfi was in full perverse, manic mode.

The work neither condemns nor applauds assisted suicide--and the creators seem to be saying, "And so what if it did?"

DOG DAYS

The more caring members of the baby boomer generation often wonder: What kind of world are we leaving for our children? David T. Little and Royce Vavrek have the answer: Don't ask.

The bleak, apocalyptic world that the composer (Little) and librettist (Vavrek) show us in their evening-length work, based on a short story by Judy Budnitz, makes the operas of Alban Berg (WOZZECK and LULU) look absolutely uplifting by comparison. Is it a call to arms? A reflection of Samuel Beckett ("I can't go on. I must go on"...)? A reminder of the hopelessness of life?

The opera tells of a family of five at the end of its rope, isolated and starving, in an unforgiving environment. As it begins, things are bad; it goes downhill from there. To call it "gritty" would be an understatement.

Little's imaginative score is written for a nine-piece chamber ensemble (performed by Newspeak, one of Little's musical homes, under conductor Alan Pierson). It draws upon elements of opera, musical theater and rock-infused contemporary concert music, with music that draws you in, even when the story is too dark to do so. Director Robert Woodruff's staging brings the horrifying nature of the piece to life, without beating the audience about the head, with excellent work from scenic and video designer Jim Findlay, costume designer Victoria "Vita" Tzykun and lighting master Christopher Kuhl.

The family increasingly falls apart, with only the mother (the wonderful soprano Marnie Breckenridge) and daughter holding it together, and the men totally useless: two brothers (tenors Michael Marcotte and Peter Tantsits) are a couple of potheads sitting in front of the television, the father (baritone James Bobick) trying unsuccessfully to play his role as paterfamilias. Everything that happens is a cause for discord for the men, whether the rations that have been flown in to help them or the chores necessary to keep the family afloat. The last of the main characters is the man/dog Prince, played by performance artist John Kelly, who is the foil for the men's violence and the women's humanity.

The center of the tale is the daughter, Lisa, gorgeously sung by soprano Lauren Worsham. I've heard her on several occasions--as Phoebe in A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER on Broadway, as Amy in WHERE'S CHARLEY at City Center Encores!, and in City Opera's LA PERICHOLE--but nothing prepared me for the depths of her range as the young woman trying to hold on to life. Whether in the scene where she writes a letter to a friend (that will never be posted) or as she prepares her mother's body for burial, she is varied and devastating.

DOG DAYS was presented by the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYU along with Beth Morrison Projects and HERE, who also produced THE LAST HOTEL with St. Ann's--and were the guiding forces behind the Prototype Festival as a whole. Bravi! to all involved. I can't wait for next year.

###

To post a comment, you must register and login.