Just before their season opener it was announced that this little charmer and it’s bigger sibling downtown—Cleveland Opera—would merge and form a new year ‘round entity known as Opera Cleveland, which will do bigger and possibly better things beginning in spring 2007. (More coming up on that in coming months, but save the date of October 6, in the meantime.)
In 1991, composer Scott Warrender was commissioned by Seattle Opera to write a companion piece to their highly-regarded Ring Cycle. He was told to 1- not use any music of Wagner; 2- not be operatic in nature; 3 – not make fun of opera or its conventions; 4 – not have more than 5 performers and 5 – not exceed 90-100 minutes in length. After a bit of thinking about it all, he approached his friend, Jim Luigs, a Houston based writer of comedy among other things. Das Barbecü is the result. Hooray for them! And for us.
It’s obvious right from the start that the two of them really know their Wagner, and although names and situations of the first three operas in the cycle (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Siegfried) are mentioned here and there, it is really the fourth one—Götterdämmerung—which provides the bulk of the material for their plot and lyrics. They’ve also obviously been to more than one down-home type hootenanny to have come up with this major league hoot!
Of course, the most singable tunes and clever lyrics going don’t mean anything without top-notch performers, and this production has exactly that. They each take on all-singing, all-dancing multiple identities and costumes with nary a bit of confusion to either us or them. Listed in the program as performer # 1, etc., they are, in order, Nicole Bégué, Marian Vogel, Anne Allgood, Matthew Wright and Nick Koesters. The latter comes close to stealing the show as Siegfried the singing cowboy, especially in the Texas two-step numbers.
There are so many stand-out moments that it would be impossible to include them all, but certainly the cheerleader routine and that of the Rhinemaidens has to top any list. They simply have to be seen to be fully appreciated.
Composer Scott Warrender conducted from the keyboard. His excellent band consisted of Heather Gulistrand on fiddle, mandolin and banjo; Tony Pulizzi on guitars and Andrew Pongracz with percussion. The excellent choreography by Martin Cespedes complemented the superb direction of Scott Spence, who never allowed the pace to falter.
Costumes by costume designer/coordinator Anne Medlock were exactly right, as was the hair and makeup of Rachel Geary. Gwendolyn Frizzell as wig assistant and Kristina Rivera as costume dresser deserve extra kudos for keeping everyone properly clothed and wigged for their multiple identities, in spite of fast scene changes.
The set was designed by Scott Knowles with lighting by Jeremy Benjamin and sound by Jim Swonger.
One would think that Playhouse Square should be able to find a suitable venue for this light-hearted, happy-natured production. You don’t have to know anything about opera to enjoy this short trip to Texas that’s bumptious, rambunctious and scrumptious all at the same time. Neat trick!
Stay tuned for updates on the new operatic scene in Cleveland. For info about the coming season, call (216) 575-0903.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATadelphia.net (:divend:)