Take a 14th-century Italian masterpiece, “The Decameron,” where seven women and three men leave Florence to escape the Black Death, agreeing to tell stories to pass the time as they flee the city, trying to leave the pandemic behind. Add the creativity of the Decameron Opera Coalition to update that premise to the COVID “plague” of today by creating a frame and nine stories through opera. Throw in nine opera companies from across the United States, including the Lyric Opera of the North. Mix in artists, musicians, directors, and virtual technical wizardry and … Ta-da! You get “Tales from a Safe Distance,” featuring nine short world premiere one-act operas.
Beginning with the opening frame, the very unhappy “Happy Hour” is told cleverly in Zoom boxes and sets up the premise of the endless passing of time in quarantine. This piece also introduces LOON’s offering, “Everything Comes to a Head,” as a “tale of lovers and roommates and woe/Tragical and Theatrical).” With sprightly music by Rachel J. Peters and a clever libretto by Margi Preus and Jean Sramek, the black comedy is dark but funny and provides a delightful bite-sized piece of opera, at just 11 minutes long.
Sage/Trish: He broke his quarantine/On top of everything
Trish: Did he wash his hands?/Did he wear a mask?
Sage/Trish Wasn’t that something he should just do?
Then shades of the “Little Shop of Horrors” thicken the plot when Basil’s gruesome murder is revealed and his singing, severed head ends up first in Rosemary’s Samsonite suitcase and then in the clay pot of her overgrown basil plant. (Basil/basil—Get it?) All four singers use their gorgeous voices and their sense of fun to create a cohesive work, even though they were never together in the same room.
Ann Gumpper’s virtual set, with beautiful paintings done for a green screen backdrop, give a whimsical interpretation of a kitchen with animated steam, a bathroom, with a bubble bath complete with animated bubbles, and a plant-filled balcony.
Bill Munson is both the project’s film editor and pianist. He is joined by Erin Aldridge, concertmaster with the DSSO, both providing the lively musical accompaniment.
As arts organizations all over the world struggle to keep from going under for good, projects such as this one are showing how to find ways to keep telling their stories.
At the Decameron Opera website, Maria Sensi Sellner from Pittsburgh’s Resonance Works, wrote, “We are daring to think big in a time of limitations, creating a collaboration that is uniquely born of this time, but which will help opera to thrive far beyond it.”
What: Decameron Opera Coalition’s “Tales from a Safe Distance”
When: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9 (LOON opera) Oct. 16, Oct. 23 and Oct. 30
Tickets: $15 for access to all the works available at decameronoperacoalition.org for streaming through Dec. 31, with closed captioning available
Sheryl Jensen is a former teacher, magazine editor and director. She reviews theater for the News Tribune.