Jacobi Review: 2 New One-Act Operas Take Form on BCT Stage

Photo by Grant Heger

In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the thumps of a heart cause a murderer to reveal his guilt. Whether those thumps are imagined or real is left for the reader to consider. In Poe’s tales, almost anything is possible, even, one supposes, a working heart in a dismembered body hidden beneath the floorboards.

Kimberley Osberg, a Poe fan since childhood and now a master’s student in Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, set her heart to writing an opera based on Poe’s grizzly story. The result of that desire and a heap of hard work was performed by New Voices Opera at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater Friday evening as the first part of a program of premieres, the other also being a one-act piece of musical theater, “The King in Yellow.” It was written by Melody Eotvos, recipient of a Doctorate in Music from the Jacobs School. Her source for content is another 19th century literary creation, a series of short stories under that title by Robert Chambers with a focus on a mythical drama with the power to drive those who read it insane.

Happy subjects, indeed.

But the literary material seems to have brought forth from both composers music that reveals a strong sense theatrically for tension and suspense, musically for knowledge of voice and instrumentation.

Whether either of the premiered pieces will remain what they are now is doubtful. Both composers hint of further work and usage. But what was offered the folks at New Voices Opera was considered good enough and promising enough to be chosen for the company’s annual prize, a staged performance.

And what was offered Friday’s night’s audience was good enough and promising enough to judge this third round of new operatic compositions a success. New Voices Opera was founded several years ago by a Jacobs School student composer anxious to have his opera heard by a public. To make that happen, he founded the company consisting of Jacobs students that continues to exist for the same purpose: to find, help develop and produce new operatic scores by young composers.

“Thump”

“Thump” consists of three arias designed to represent the psyche of Poe’s narrator as cold-blooded murderer of an old man, as murderer with a guilt-ridden conscience for having committed the crime and as murderer oscillating between those feelings. The three singers chosen — mezzo-soprano Marianthi Hatzis, tenor Tislam Swift and bass-baritone Conner Lidell — excelled at creating the necessary atmosphere and making each viewpoint in Poe’s character distinctive. Composer Osberg should have been well pleased, as the cheering audience seemed to be. Conductor Carlo Frizzo conducted the chamber-sized orchestra and the soloists with obvious care and an ability to adroitly negotiate the high-wire drama being unveiled. David Kote, as director, wisely held down stage action to focus on the power of thought within the narrator’s febrile mind. He let the music do the telling.

“The King in Yellow”

The same conductor-stage director combination handled “The King in Yellow,” again with more suggestion of action than actual.

Composer Eotvos has, so far, dealt with but a fraction of the Chambers stories. Her content zooms in on two artists, a sculptor named Boris and a painter, Alec, who are experimenting with a liquid that can turn anything it touches into marble. There’s also Geneview, the wife of Boris, and a fourth character, Jack, who complicates relationships. Forgive me, Melody, but I got so involved listening to your music that I lost track of the story’s fine points and fail to remember who Jack is. The names in Chambers’ stories differ from those chosen for these promising snippets of what, the composer says, may eventually be filled out as a complete opera or its artistic equivalent.

But baritone Brayton Arvin, who played Jack, has a strong and expressive voice that certainly added to the passionate aura that heated the theater during “The King in Yellow.” Eotvos’ music contains a personality that is hers, but in search of something with which to compare it, I thought of Richard Strauss, the Strauss of “Elektra” and “Die Frau ohne Schatten.”

Soprano Amy Burger as Genevieve, tenor Marquese Carter as Alec and bass-baritone Steven Berlanga as Boris were well chosen, with an ability to highlight the macabre and the mystery of characters and content.

Looking ahead

And let it be known that New Voices Opera has already selected its winning double bill for 2016, “Swann’s Love,” a comedy by Maxwell Ramage, and “Forest of Dreams,” with a story about the lost colony of Roanoke.

They’ll premiere next April 22 and 23 in the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center. Mark your calendars.