Arts
’Spanish Sirens’ a hit at The Factory Theater by Bessie King
MySouthEnd.com ContributorWednesday Jan 28, 2009 Right from the start "Spanish Sirens" engages. OperaHub performed its rendition of Maurice Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole, a one act comedic opera, four times over a three-day period, Jan. 23-25, at The Factory Theater, 791 Tremont St. Revolving around Concepcion, a seductress married to a busy clockmaker, Torquemada, the mini-opera features its protagonist juggling admirers, Gonzalve, Don Inigo Gomez, and Ramiro, while her husband works in town.
The piece, as music director Jordan Rodu explained in the show’s introduction, is filled with "Spanishisms."
"Ravel and other composers wanted to indicate the opera was set in Spain by using Spanish references. Whether by using musical rhythms like the Habanier, which are sultry...or using typical Spanish characters like the seductress, the poet, gypsies or bull fighting," said Rodu. "There is a lot of passion linked to Spain present in these works. I think that if you rolled your ’Rs’ as much, you’d be pretty passionate too."
The humor in Rodu’s introduction prior to the actual presentation set the mood for comedy. From there, Cabiria Jacobsen interpreted Carmen’s famous opera solos and fascinated the audience with her powerful mezzo-soprano abilities and coquettish expressions. The main presentation followed and although only a one-act performance, every detail was accounted for.
The space at The Facotry Theater is small and opaque. But with Stephen Dobay’s modern set design, with pieces of clocks arranged strategically across the stage, lights used to cast shadows of clock faces as backdrops, and bright, yellow construction paper covering the main wall to add color, the space was transformed.
Kathleen Doyle also made her debut as costume designer with great results.
Doyle dressed Torquemada simply, but a leather working apron filled with watchstraps, coils, and tools showed his role and true love for clocks, not his wife. At the same time, Concepcion appeared glitzy from head to toe. From her burgundy Edwardian dress, embroidered with deep, rich golden accents, to the handkerchief she nestled in her chest, her attire demonstrated her need for attention. Likewise Concepcion’s admirers fit their roles, with the poet Gonzalve in a black, chest-bearing shirt, Don Inigo in a belle-époque suit with a top hat and cravat included, and the muleteer Ramiro in a ragged handmade vest and torn boots.
"L’Heure Espagnole is a particularly lighthearted and funny story, so we really wanted to convey that through all aspects of the presentation," said Brittany Duncan, who played Concepcion. "It was really rewarding to have the audiences so engaged and laughing along with the plot’s twists and turns. We were especially pleased at the range of ages and opera experience of our audience for this show-from older opera buffs excited to see this rarely-performed work to twenty-somethings and children attending their first opera."
This attention to detail seemed to help the actors too, who performed in French while a slim rectangular screen displayed subtitles above them. Daniel Uribe, who played the poet Gonzalve, got in touch with his emotions as he expressed love to nearly everything and constantly wrote lines in his poetry book. His voice hit every note, as did every cast member’s. Perhaps the most emotive, though, was Jeffrey McEvoy, who played Ramiro. As he discovers that he, too, is interested in the married woman, his eyes and tortured voice display his emotion. He is only a muleteer; Concepcion is too good for him.
Ironically, as Concepcion grows tired of the emotional poet Gonzalve, the rich, but older Don Inigo, and her time-strapped husband, Ramiro, the muleteer, becomes her main interest. As the show comes to an end, "the muleteer gets his turn," intimating that everyone can have a chance at love.
"The audience reception to ’Spanish Sirens’ was fantastic," said Duncan. "We were totally booked for each performance with waiting lists before opening night. The donations varied by performance but the overall level was higher than we anticipated. I think people respond well to our productions in general because we’re not presenting opera as difficult to understand. Our goal is to break it down to what opera is at the most basic level, using music and drama to tell a story. That’s what we find so exciting and inspiring about opera - it’s the combination of so many different art forms, which, together, can be really powerful."
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