Story Edgar Allan Poe
Music by David Sylvian/J.S. Bach
Concept by Martin Haselbock, Frank Hoffmann, Virgil Widrich
Review by: Judith Oehman
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 1/22/19 – Just returned from a very pleasant afternoon at the Long Beach Opera. Long Beach is the oldest Opera house in Southern California.
It is an opera house that challenges it audience. Because of this devilish, impish attitude they have brought the likes of me to the opera. I have not been a fan the Opera in the past.
I may never attended many of the standard opera,s but will be at the opening of operas such as this one. My mindset has been altered.
The Black Cat, a story of murder and regret, it is one of Poe’s lesser know works. It is less popular due to the strong denunciation of alcohol in it. Poe uses the superstitions around the black cat (the Scottish Cat Sith) to punish the narrator of the story for killing his wife in a drunken fit.
The cats are acted out in dance. Sylvia Camarda and Jean-Guillaume Weis choose their own creative and fluid moves to the actions of the cat. Their experience with Cirque du Soleil can be seen and felt as they give their own slithery interpretations of the power of the black cat.
Our killer is a tenor role that Jaques Schiltz acts out for us and Aaron Sheehan sings for us. An interesting back story is that the part was to be played by Nicholas Mulroy, but he could not get into this country. The government shutdown has slowed all passports.
So if you like dance, love good music, and a love the punishment of cruel acts. Watching the narrator’s house go up in flames symbolizing the narrators “almost complete moral disintegrating” will make you cheer.
Come see: you may just like on opera.
