Review: NEW WORKS COLLECTIVE at Opera Theatre Of Saint Louis

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has a rich history in world premiers, often commissioning new works from significant composers and librettists.  But it seeks to foster brand-new talents too.

Its New Works Collective is a three-year project wherein each year OTSL commits to developing and producing three new short operas from fledgling composers and librettists. But it delegates a very major decision to a community committee: specifically, the decision on which operas to commission.  And it’s a committee not of opera professionals, but of St. Louis “artists, advocates, and local leaders”.

Risky gamble!

This year’s festival began with three-hundred entrants from across the country.  These were winnowed down to thirty, then to the three winners now being presented.   This is a priceless opportunity for young talents.  They receive lavish support from the deep well of talent and experience that is OTSL.

The winning operas are:

• “Black Coffee” by Concert Black (composer) and Alicia Revé-Like (librettist)
• “Family Style” by Meilina Tsui (composer) and Melisa Tien (librettist)
• “Kandake” by Tim Amukele (composer) and Jarrod Lee (librettist)

All three operas share a common music director (Darwin Aquino), stage director (Richard Gammon), scenic-and-projection designer (Yuki Izumihara), costume designer (Angelique Newbauer), lighting designer (Kaitlyn Breen), choreographer (Brandon Fink), and wig-and-make-up designer (Kelley Jordan)—as well as six singers playing sixteen roles, and four dancers.  These shared talents yield an evening that (despite the striking differences among these operas) has an agreeable uniformity.

“Black Coffee” is a charming, gentle little piece about Makena, a young woman whose job transfers her to St. Louis, where she knows no-one.  She’s lonely and doesn’t know how to find a friend.   Her father, in a weekly phone call, gives Makena love and tender advice.  She tries a book club—to no avail.  But friendship blooms when a chance acquaintance in a coffee shop admires her art. 

Very simple, almost no plot at all.  No decisions, no conflict, no high-stakes, no danger.  Yet the music swings and entertains, the wonderful cartoonish animated projections create a happy world for this lonely girl.  She’s an amateur artist.  We meet her sketching idly on her pad—while her drawing (a clever animated bird) takes shape in the sky behind her. 

Taylor-Alexis DuPont is slender and vulnerable-looking, and she has a very beautiful voice.  She makes a quite loveable Makena.  Martin Luther Clark, as her father, shows both love and delicate restraint in their lovely duet.

“Family Style” brings us a refreshing serving of Chinese tonalities and instrumentation.  It’s a moving domestic tale, and it is my favorite of the evening.  We see a very shabby trailer-home.  A happy group—Mia, her father Ping, and two neighbors—are having a delicious lunch outside.  Ping (Paul Chwe MinChul An) has always worked as a dish-washer, but soon, he hopes, he will have saved enough to realize his dream—a “father-daughter hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant”!  Finally he’ll be able to show America the recipes from his homeland that he has long treasured. 

The lyrics seem mundane (“Do you still like rice dumplings?”  “Yes, I still like rice dumplings.”)  But they are rich in subtext and foreshadowing. 

Young Mia (Emilie Kealani) learns that she has been accepted by the college of her choice!  But her dream crashes when she learns that her financial-aid application was submitted too late.  So we have a conflict of dreams, very high stakes, and a life-changing decision to be made.  Ping unhesitatingly sacrifices his own dream to help his daughter attain hers.  It’s a poignant and very loving ending.

Ms. Kealani fills Mia with sweet clarity, and Mr. An’s lyric bass voice rings rich and strong.  His gently comic solo to a bag of vegetables is a gem.  (“American broccoli dreams of being Chinese broccoli.”)  And he is a most gifted actor.

Miss Tsui’s music is delicious—full of what to Western ears are exotic timbres.  It gives the emotional movements of the story close and detailed support.  I was particularly drawn to the voice of the erhu—a traditional bowed two-string lute, beautifully played by Fang Liu. 

“Kandake” takes us worlds away from our time and place.  It tells the tale of Amanirenas, the one-eyed warrior queen who led the Kushite kingdom in its conflicts with Rome in the first century B.C.  “Kandake” means simply “Queen” in Meroitic.  Operatically, we leap a few centuries back from our familiar “verismo” operas (about ordinary or even poor people) to a tale of royalty and heroic legends.  This piece is sheathed in grandeur.  The costumes (by Ms. Newbauer) are glorious and glittering. 

Mezzo-soprano Cierra Byrd makes a very powerful and commanding queen.  In battle she loses both her eye and her husband, but that doesn’t stop her.  Awash in grief she rallies her forces to meet the Romans.  Martin Luther Clark does strong work as her son, Akinidad.

This piece is more a rite or ritual than a conventional opera.  There is military conflict, but there are no human relations to be explored.  These people’s personalities are limited to simply “Queen” or “Prince”.

Musically it is grand and African.  There is a lovely moment of ululation, that eerie vocal warbling that always sends a chill up my spine. 

The projected scenery is stunning, with colossal statues and showers of weapons.  In the final triumphant scene the stage is flooded with a shower of gold. 

Two small points are problematic:

• An actual photograph of the dead king is included in the projected background.  This anachronistically damages the tone of the piece, which is and should be ancient and iconic.
• Rhyme is very sparsely present in the lyrics, but when it appears it is usually in a very mundane sort of modern talk.  Where has “elevated speech” gone?

In all three of these operas James Stevens does great work singing supporting roles.  Dancers Ja’Don Hamilton, Julia Lucarelli, Robert Poe, and Jamila Scales fill the scenes with grace (and shift a table and chair or two [and fight in the Kushite wars]).

Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ New Works Collective played at Coca Feb 6-8.  It was a lovely dose of something new.

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