Long Beach Opera is nothing if not nervy. Two years ago, it mounted an abbreviated version of Wagner's "Ring" cycle, with the composer's majestic orchestrations played by an ensemble of 25. Last year, its production of Grigori Frid's "The Diary of Anne Frank" was staged in two parking garages. That kind of moxie has brought LBO national and even international attention. Yet for all its acclaim and a loyal cadre of supporters, it continues to be relatively unfamiliar to L.A. audiences.
But that may be about to change. With tonight's opening of its newly commissioned version of Ricky Ian Gordon's "Orpheus & Euridice," LBO is launching a season studded with high-profile names -- and one that could bring the 29-year-old company a greater following.
"Orpheus & Euridice" stars Metropolitan Opera alum Elizabeth Futral and twice Grammy-nominated clarinetist Todd Palmer along with the Denali String Quartet. The 70-minute song cycle will be performed around -- and in -- the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool in Long Beach and staged by LBO artistic and general director Andreas Mitisek, who also conducts the company's productions. It will be followed later in the season by a double bill featuring actor Michael York, a recital by mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and a reprise of "Anne Frank."
The concept for the "Orpheus" production was Mitisek's. "The inspiration for using the pool was the element of the water, with Orpheus crossing the River Styx to find his lost love," says the Viennese-born maestro, just back from conducting and directing the Italian premiere of John Adams' "Nixon in China" in Verona. "The water is a metaphor that takes many forms: a pool party, a place for love and a road to the underworld."
Such imagination is characteristic of Mitisek's approach to music theater, but it's an approach that follows that of LBO founder Michael Milenski, who tapped Mitisek to succeed him in 2003. "For me, rather than taking people to a theater where you enter a room you are comfortable with, it is important to select a site-specific location, as we did with 'The Diary of Anne Frank,' " says Mitisek. "It made people understand the work in a different and emotional way."
Most opera companies would be averse to such risks. However, "I think companies sometimes underestimate their audience and therefore limit themselves," explains Mitisek, who co-founded and was music director of the Vienna Opera Theater. Just as that company was launched to present contemporary works and add something that was missing from Viennese musical culture, so too is LBO "here to fill a gap, a big gap."
"Taking a risk, that's what we have to do in art anyway," Mitisek says. "Any new production is a risk, unless you limit yourself to the old war horses. Ninety percent of opera companies do the same 10 operas. But if you don't have the courage to take risks, then you are stuck."
As it happens, composer Gordon is one of contemporary opera's bright lights. His "Grapes of Wrath," which first bowed at Minnesota Opera in 2007, is slated for Opera Pacific and Houston Grand Opera in 2009 as well as a recording. The Times' Mark Swed praised the premiere, saying "the opera's greatest glory is Gordon's ability to musically flesh out the entire 11-member Joad clan."
Mitisek was familiar with Gordon's work, including songs performed by Audra McDonald and Dawn Upshaw. Looking for something contemporary, he came across Gordon's "Orpheus & Euridice."
Part of the attraction was that it was based on a Greek myth. "It seems the unbearable truth of so many issues we have in mankind we only are able to make bearable by retelling the story all over again," says Mitisek.
In Gordon's case, the story of Orpheus, the musician who journeys to the underworld to retrieve his lost love, had a connection to his own experience. Written while his partner was dying, the piece was originally intended to fulfill a 1995 commission from clarinetist Palmer.
"I don't think he expected that I was going to write an evening-length opera," says Gordon, speaking by phone from New York. "I loved his initiative. He not only wanted to be an instrumentalist, he wanted to create repertoire."
Unfortunately, Gordon was his partner's primary caretaker and didn't feel up to writing. "It was a very difficult time for me, and I kept putting Todd off," he recalls.
Then in the middle of one night, the idea struck, and Gordon wrote the libretto in the kind of fevered haste that ordinarily occurs only in movies. "My partner, Jeffrey, woke up an hour later and I had the whole piece written," he says.
The result exemplifies the transformation of pain into art. "This really rose from the ashes," says Gordon. "It is so about what was happening to me at the time -- for instance, the line 'As in increments he left.' It's exactly what you want as a writer: If you have to live it, you hope you can blow it out your horn."
