Long Beach Opera Establishes a Laboratory for New Works

Up-to-date as Long Beach Opera is in its attitude, it doesn’t actually produce new work very often. But it has now decided to at least give aid and comfort to the struggling composers and librettists who do. As a first effort, the company is including the premieres of two operas by local composers as part of what it calls “Coincidences,” events (usually pre-opera talks) surrounding its new production of Strauss’ “Elektra.”

The operas, given their first performances Friday night at the Edison Theater in downtown Long Beach and presented by Downtown Opera, were William Houston’s “Consumers’ Paradise” and Martin Herman’s “Orlando.” Houston wrote the librettos for both; Herman was the conductor of a seven-member pit band hidden under the stage. Byungkoo Ahn was the young director for the two operas. Accomplished singers participated.

“Consumers’ Paradise” mocks our commercial world, as an irrepressible ad agency executive (Paul Berkolds) force-feeds to death a thoroughly humiliated test consumer (Jonathan Mack). The musical style is declamatory but still operatic, far too operatic to be effective in such a small space. What I liked best, but the audience seemed to hate, was the ending, a silly tune played over and over and over while the video at the rear of the stage showed endless loops of a grim urban strip of used car lots. It was excessive enough to be almost interesting.

Houston’s Gertrude Stein-ish wordplay actually worked better for Herman’s opera than his own, partly because “Orlando” employs snappier, more Minimalist music. A Postmodern take on Virginia Woolf’s novel, it makes room for Orlando as both a woman (Jacqueline Bobak) and cross-dressing male (Berkolds). Mack, a tenor, dressed in a kitschy sailor suit and suspended from a puffy cloud, masqueraded as a castrato. Casanova (Marc Lowestein) had a walk-on role; Chopin (Russell Smith) was glimpsed from behind; and George Sand (a spoken role performed by pianist Vicki Ray) wound up marrying the female Orlando. Society, Certainty and Ambiguity, her companions, commented on the action.

In the end, “Consumers’ Paradise” and “Orlando” proved small operas wanting to be something grander, Postmodern opera impossibly reliant on older operatic vocal conventions. Still, it was hard not to watch these clumsy works without sympathy. Opera is such an extravagant enterprise, it requires substantial experimentation; and there is pleasure to be had in a visit to the laboratory.

* “Consumers’ Paradise” and “Orlando” repeat Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., Edison Theater, 213 E. Broadway, Long Beach. $20. (562) 439-2580.