Portland may be known for its beer theaters, but what about beer operas? With a movie, too? Carmen, at the Someday Lounge, is a little bit of everything: part musical review, part opera, part silent movie screening and part old-fashioned Cabaret Voltaire-style performance art, with a little bit of Portland’s trademark overeducated and unemployed attitude thrown in for good measure.
Bar brawls and opera?
Portland may be known for its beer theaters, but what about beer operas? With a movie, too? Carmen, at the Someday Lounge, is a little bit of everything: part musical review, part opera, part silent movie screening and part old-fashioned Cabaret Voltaire-style performance art, with a little bit of Portland’s trademark overeducated and unemployed attitude thrown in for good measure.
The performance is a selection of arias (operatic vocal solos) and choral accompaniment from Bizet’s opera Carmen, sung along to a live soundtrack of piano and noise to create the music and dialogue of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1915 silent film Carmen. The show was conceived of and is being staged by Opera Theater Oregon (OTO) as part of their ongoing “Alternative Opera” series.
On opening night, the performers strolled through the crowd between the bar and the stage to speak with the tech staff and one another, already dressed for the show in black capes, dresses and gypsy shawls fit for a kids’ summer camp talent show. Someone with a tall cranberry drink closed the curtain and then opened it, smiling, and voice warm-ups in an unfathomable pitch were heard ringing out from the nether regions of the club.
The film, projected onto an ample sheet on the club’s stage, is only 50 minutes, crashing through the smuggling problem, dual romance, success and ultimate tragedy of a young gypsy woman free to give, or deny, her love. On the screen, Geraldine Farrar strikes one elegant stage pose after another, smacking her male relatives and throwing her chest out in pride in one scene and gliding effortlessly into the lipsticked Don Jose’s arms in the next, soundlessly convincing him that just trying to touch her skin would be better than retaining all his morals.
Sound effect aficionado Squish brings out a host of surprises for his scoring of the bar brawls, including banging on a tin wall while smashing bottles and, later, breaking out a saw. Accompanying him is the OTO’s Cavalcade of Beautiful Losers, a chorus section of nine women who hoot and holler along with the movie in between singing with the main players.
In capes, Eric Hunt as Escamillo and Leslie Green as Don Jose deliver striking performances in dialogue with Elizabeth Madsen Bradford as Carmen, and the voices of Liz Bacon as Frasquita and Tspia Swan as Mercedes are thrilling as well.
Beginning with a couple of performances last summer, including the premiere of Carmen and a Dada night with surrealist films, the Alternative Opera series is growing into a standard at the Someday Lounge. The crowd was complete with lone theater-lovers, couples out for a night in Portland away from their teenage kids, and a handful of 20-somethings who just couldn’t stop laughing. The mixed-up crowd works because the medium works–everyone is there to have a good time.
As a small, progressive nonprofit company, Opera Theater Oregon is made up of a group of musical artists doing what they love, and it’s hard not to love what they are doing: making opera accessible and interesting.
Opera Cinema: Carmen Nightly at 7 p.m. until Thursday, Feb. 14 Someday Lounge125 N.W. Fifth Ave.$12 in advance, $15 at the door21-plus
