Review: With a Different Perspective, UNHOLY WARS Shows What's Old is New Again at Opera Philadelphia

According to creator and star tenor Karim Sulayman, UNHOLY WARS, a 70-minute opera pastiche that made its debut on Saturday at Philadelphia Opera’s O23 Festival, “stitches together a collection of baroque music centered around the Middle East and the Crusades, examining the separation of the human race based on creed and color.” His inspiration had been to overturn stereotypes about the Middle East that had arisen from British colonialism, from Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Sheherazade” to Disney’s “Aladdin.”  

The result was a creative multi-visual/musical work with dance, drawing heavily on Monteverdi’s IL COMBATTIMENTO DI TANCREDI E CLORINDA from the 17th century, the tale of love and loss, as a knight unwittingly kills his Saracen lover in battle because she is unrecognizable in her armor.

The event was cleverly and sensitively directed by Kevin Newbury, with brilliant projected images by Michael Commendatore of towns and buildings that were created on stage, supplementing Kevork Mourad’s physical set design. (Sometimes, however, the artwork distracted from the music because of their fascinating design.) The music of different ages, including modern electronic interludes by Mary Kouyoumdjian, was soldered into a cohesive piece akin to a stained-glass window, polished and connected.

Music director Julie Andrijeski used her small, unamplified ensemble to make the most of the intimate Suzanne Roberts Theatre. Kouyoumdjian’s compositions were a welcome component to the Baroque elements of the score, which sometimes seemed to have too much of a sameness, adding urgency that occasionally seemed lacking. 

The three alluring singers—tenor Sulayman with his reedy voice, the sweet soprano of Raha Mirzadegan and the lyric, distinctive bass-baritone of John Taylor Wood--worked together seamlessly, often in a most stylized way.

This included projecting the Monteverdi micro-opera-within-an-opera and performing any of the other arias that were woven into the piece, including Handel’s justifiably famous, breathtaking “Lascia ch’io pianga,” which Sulayman delivered gorgeously near the end of the performance. There were works by the Caccinis, Rossi and others, as well, that added to the somberness of the piece.

Supplementing the music was choreography of Ebony Williams, performed by Coral Dolphin, sometimes more abstract than one could have desired though never less than riveting in its fashion, weaving a fabric that brought the action together.

Yet UNHOLY WARS was always more than the sum of its parts, commenting on hundreds of years of politics, of disaffection, war and destruction, that have made our visions of the Middle East something very different from reality.

UNHOLY WARS will be performed through October 1. For more information, see Opera Philadelphia's website.

Photo: Ray Bailey/Opera Philadelphia