UrbanArias, take note of this name. The Dresser is excited about this contemporary opera company based in the DC area. January 14, 2011, she saw its production of seven pocket operas presented in just over one hour of performance time and walked out of the Arlington, Virginia, Artisphere giddy with delight. 
Why? The performers were every bit as good as what an operagoer expects from the big opera companies and the small companies or hosting organizations like Encompass New Opera Theatre and Lauren Maazel's Castleton Festival. More importantly, the work selected showed a serious attempt to reach out to a younger audience and the sold-out audience in this 125-seat black box theater was primarily young adults in their 20s and 30s. Certainly it helps that tickets were priced at an affordable rate that was just above what a filmgoer might pay for a movie.
The seven mini-operas included:
Betty Box Office by composer Jack Perla and librettist Ken Gass
Again by composer Jake Heggie and librettist David Patrick Stearns
Trust Me by composer/librettist Seymour Barab
Maternal Instinct by composer/librettist Seymour Barab
Gallantry by composer/librettist Seymour Barab
The Act by composer Lori Laitman and poet H. L. Hix
Camera Obscura by composer Jonathan Sheffer and librettist Robert Patrick
Overall the music for these seven operas was tonal and accessible. To the Dresser's ear, the most interesting music came from Lori Laitman (The Act) and Jake Heggie (Again). Laitman's music takes more risks with tonality and Heggie's produced engaging rhythms that showed off the skills of the cast soprano Meghan McCall, soprano Edrie Means, baritone James Rogers (an eleventh-hour stand-in who did an outstanding job), and tenor Rolando Sanz. As to subject and text, all seven operas were clever and engaging at varying levels of sophistication.
Standing head and shoulders above the set of short works both for its music and text, The Act, which concerns a knife-throwing act by a husband and wife, offers lines like "love is made of danger not romance." Meghan McCall in her sensuous feathered headdress and violet gloves was fascinating to watch and hear. 
She performed in five of the seven works taking on a wide array of personalities--a desperate-to-perform box office salesperson (Betty Box Office), the 1950s TV comic Lucy Arnez (Again), a manipulative maid from the wrong side of the tracks (Maternal Instinct), a knife-thrower's target (The Act), and a modern day young woman seeking love through high tech but frustrating communications (Camera Obscura). In 2007, McCall first caught The Dresser's attention when this soprano played Rapunzel in Maryland Opera Studios production of Conrad Susa's opera Transformations based on the poetry of Pulitzer Prize-winner Anne Sexton.
Betty Box Office did something that new opera needs to do more to fully engage opera newcomers--it made reference to a real event in real time and that was, upcoming UrbanArias programs that will feature the work of composer Ricky Ian Gordon. 
After the mini-opera program, the Dresser spoke to UrbanArias executive director Robert Wood who said he asked Jack Perla to slightly modify Betty Box Office to include that alert about the future programs of UrbanArias. Perla created Betty Box Office for the Canadian opera company Tapestry New Opera. Tapestry also develops shorter works in their "Opera to Go" series. While New York City has its small opera companies (Encompass New Opera Theatre, American Opera Projects, and The Center for Contemporary Opera) that develop new American works, the Dresser is not aware of any other companies entirely focused on contemporary opera.
Jake Heggie's Again is a dark comedy that shows a less tolerant Desi Arnez. Like Box Office Betty, Lucy is desperate to break into to show business and wants a part in Desi's show. However, Desi is tired of her constant auditioning and so he gives her a black eye and roughs her up from time to time. Rolando Sanz made a convincing Desi complete with the accent and he was a good complement to Meghan McCall's Lucy. As stated earlier in this review, Heggie's music showed off the talents of everyone performing in UrbanArias mini-opera program. The Dresser also wonders if the librettist David Patrick Stearns is also the same classical music critic and columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
One other point that must be made about this program is that because baritone Ethan Watermeier fell ill and could not perform, Bob Wood had to find another singer late in the rehearsal process to fill in. Wood was lucky enough to find James Rogers who gave consistently good performances in five different operas. However, to reduce the stress on Rogers, the program was done concert style, which did little to dampen the enthusiasm felt by the Dresser and the attending audience. So the Dresser can only imagine what additional pleasure a fully staged production will bring.
Playing against Laitman's The Act, Charles Jensen aptly addresses operatic love in his poem "Huma Rojo Grieves." The poem comes from Jensen's book The First Risk and the section of the book entitled "City of the Sad Divas" with the explanatory epigraph after Pedro Almodóvar. Huma Rojo is an actress in Almodóvar's film Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother).
HUMA ROJO GRIEVES
The beginning of the end
is not a moment but a song: tender notes
you know you've heard before, the sound
a lover makes in her throat
to answer some silly question you've posed--
and the ending comes after
like explosions from far-away fireworks:
delayed, embittered, put out.
And though the lover has her cries--
the one for loving, the one for lonesomeness,
the cry that signals sleep will come, the cry
that coats the body in its low, warm vibration--
the end has no cry; the end
like a tire's slow leak comes with a hiss,
a delicate release giving the body to gravity,
to the ground, before the wound's even felt.
by Charles Jensen
from The First Risk
Copyright © 2009 Charles Jensen
Photo of Meghan McCall by Roy Cox
Photos of Robert Wood & Artisphere ©2010 Urban Arias
Comments (1)
The pocket operas sounded interesting when I heard it described on
WAMU last week, glad to hear it was delightful...not to mention it's in my
neighborhood.
Posted by Rosanne Russo | January 19, 2011 8:58 AM
Posted on January 19, 2011 08:58