Saw The Little Death, Vol 1 last night at St. Marks Church.
Seeing Matt Marks’ song cycle/opera/musical was a revelation for me. His songs are funny, poignant and musically enthralling. He and Mellissa Hughes (a Tiny Alligator favourite) treat Marks’ songs, and the stage, with total abandon. The show continues through next week.
Equally brilliant is the music video of the hit song from this show, “I Don’t Have Any Fun On My Own.”
A staged song cycle, executed with low production costs and an obvious joy for the performers to play is exceedingly exciting for me to discover, given that I have a song cycle sitting in my living room, waiting for edits and and an audience.
Along the same lines, I heard Corey Dargel perform part of his show Removable Parts at an Opera On Tap/American Opera Projects showcase at Galapagos on Friday night. Like Matt and Mellissa, Corey has a knack for going for broke while singing about uncomfortable things; his deadpan carried the audience nicely through his song cycle about voluntary amputation.
Both shows were a fabulous example of composer/performers following an outlandish idea with total commitment through to fascinating results. I’ve often come across ideas and thought, “yeah, but that’d never happen on stage….” This weekend has given me hope that music does happen, and happen very nicely on stage.
It also raised questions about opera. My companion thought that perhaps Corey’s piece, performed by Corey in his straight-toned pop voice, didn’t belong in an opera showcase. The Little Death bills itself as a “pop-opera”. Composers seem to be throwing that word around a lot lately, making the definition of new opera seem a little fuzzy.
I’ve been using it myself to describe a show that tells a story, has cooler melodies and harmonies than what I associate with musical theatre, and keeps some of the theatrical formalism of old-school operas.
But when ideas are that loose, how do we define something enough to persuade a venue to present it, and an audience to come and hear it?
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Edit:
Another post about TLDV1, more eloquently put than mine:
http://soundtime.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/hey-lets-put-on-a-show/
