by Mike Hoban
Trouble in Tahiti and Arias & Barcarolles – Music & Libretto by Leonard Bernstein; Directed by David Schweizer; Scenic Design by Paul Tate dePoo III; Lighting Design by Jeff Adelberg; Costumes by Nancy Leary; Movement Director Melinda Sullivan. Presented by Boston Lyric Opera at DCR Steriti Memorial Rink, 561 Commercial Street on the North End Waterfront through May 20
The Boston Lyric Opera presents its second offering of the spring season geared towards the non-opera going crowd with an appealing mash-up of a pair of Leonard Bernstein works at the unlikeliest of venues – the DCR Steriti Memorial Skating Rink. There isn’t a Zamboni in sight, however, as the Steriti Rink has been beautifully transformed into an El Morocco-inspired 1950s-style nightclub by scenic designer Paul Tate DePoo II, whose previous work includes his stunning design of Showboat with the Fiddlehead Theatre Company, which earned him an IRNE Award for Scenic Design in 2017.
The BLO takes Trouble in Tahiti – Bernstein’s comically infused but dark commentary of suburban life in the 50’s – and follows it up without interruption with Arias & Barcarolle to create a thematically connected 90-minute performance piece. Interestingly, Trouble was first performed in 1952 at Bernstein’s Festival of the Creative Arts at Brandeis University (where he taught from 1951-1956), while Arias, an eight-part song cycle, was composed in 1988.
Like The Threepenny Opera (staged by the BLO at the Huntington Avenue Theatre in March), Tahiti is sung in English, this time with surtitles on a screen behind the proscenium, which was a great help at times during the unmiked performance. As Tahiti opens, we’re greeted by “a Greek chorus, born of a radio commercial” extolling the virtues of suburban living via the bouncy “Prelude,” with lyrics like “Mornin’ sun kisses the driveway, kisses the lawn, kisses the flagstones on the front lawn, of the little white house!”. Once inside the home however, we see the bleak reality of that suburban bliss, as married couple Sam and Dinah bitterly bicker about finances, suspected infidelity and child care.
While Sam (Marcus Deloach) is a disaster at home, he’s a superstar at the office, as we hear from his sycophantic employees (also the Greek chorus), and also a handball champ, winning the Gold Cup at his local gym. But he’s also got an ego the size of Pluto, as we see in his ridiculously Trumpian number, “There’s a Law About Men” about winners (of which he is one) and losers in life. There’s also a #MeToo moment where Sam calls his secretary into his office to ask if he has ever made a pass at her. When she reminds him of an incident, Sam says, “I’d forgotten that” and then informs her that it was an accident and that she should forget that it ever happened. Some things never change.
Meanwhile, Dinah (Heather Johnson) is utterly miserable, but holds out hope that things can improve, as she tells her therapist in the wonderfully sung number, “There is a Garden”. Following an encounter downtown with her husband, where the two lie to each other about their schedules to avoid having lunch together, she goes to the movies to escape. The feature, entitled, “Trouble in Tahiti” is Technicolor dreck about a Navy pilot washing up in Tahiti and falling in love with a native girl. Dinah walks out of but is haunted by its theme, “Island Magic,” sung by the Greek chorus (“What a movie!”). At the close of the mini-opera (40 minutes), the two try and reconcile by going to the movies together to see – you guessed it – “Trouble in Tahiti”, but their future remains in doubt.
The piece then shifts into seamlessly into Arias & Barcarolle, which, while less satisfying than the absurd Trouble, is well-performed, continuing the sense of despair and melancholy established in the first piece. Although I am not qualified to comment on the skill sets of the performer’s operatic abilities, both of the leads were very strong, and the Greek chorus of Neal Ferreira, Vincent Turregano, and Mara Bonde, (whom some may remember from her outstanding portrayal as Sarah Brown in Reagle Theater’s Guys and Dolls in 2015) are as gifted comically as they are vocally, particularly when playing the role of sunnily dispositioned commercial singers. The seven-piece chamber ensemble, led by David Angus, is first rate, mixing the styles of twelve-tone scale, jazzy scat, pop music and even klezmer, flawlessly.
This production serves as a wonderful introduction to the world of opera for the uninitiated, and is well worth a trip down to the Steriti Rink. Just leave your skates at home. For more information and tickets, go to: https://blo.org/
