By Stephen Wigler from Boston Musical Intelligencer
Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata or the Nude Goddess appeared Saturday night at Jordan Hall in a superbly done semi-staged version with costumes, lighting, and a fair amount of blocking in Jordan Hall. Gil Rose Led Odyssey Opera in a show also touted a as preparation for a commercial recording of the work. The composer of the 1999 co-commission from the Houston Grand Opera and the New York City Opera in 1999 has been described more than once as “Sondheim on steroids.” This writer does not know who was the first to use the phrase, but he knows that it was meant as a compliment. He might very well be dropping some chromaticism and dodecaphony on us without our realizing it.
Steroids or no steroids, Adamo ― to judge from his Lysistrata ― has mastered several accessible styles that include echoes of Gershwin and Milhaud, as well as Broadway music and jazz, all of which he manages to synthesize and play off against each other in an ironic, attention-grabbing manner. In. addition, his librettos show a mastery of verse that includes interior rhymes and witty word play ― all of which he sets to music that is brilliantly orchestrated and colored and whose emotional range varies from anger to yearning rather than from a to b.
Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, a swaggering anti-war farce, made famous a group of Athenian and Spartan women who denied their men their conjugal connections unless they bring their endless warring to a halt. But Adamo has not simply set some selections from Aristophanes to music, he’s created ― even while using many of the fifth-century Athenian playwright’s characters ― an entirely new theater piece. While Adamo’s retains the play’s anti-war slant ― the women march onto the stage carrying posters that declare “Peace Now!” ― he rather focuses primarily on the battle of the sexes, pitting the aggression inherent in men against the passion of women.
A selection of Kathy Witman’s photos follow with captions below.
Top row of pictures of leading ladies
Far left: Lysia impatiently awaits her lover (Lysia: Anya Matanovič)
Second from left: Aphrodite, descended to earth (Aphrodite: Maggie Finnegan))
Far right: Lampito agrees to the embargo (Lampito: Alexis Peart)
Athenian and Spartan women offer Lysia ceremonial gifts
Left to right: Maggie Finnegan (Xanthe), Kristen Watson (Dika), Alexis Peart (Lampito), Anya Matanovič (Lysia), Jamie-Rose Guarrine (Charito), Felicia Gavilanes (Sappho), Katherine Beck (Myrrhine)
Spartan and Athenian soldiers beg for release
John Moore (Kinesias), Nathan Halbur (Bion), Fred C. VanNess, Jr. (Meleagros), Neal Ferreira (Alpheus), Nicholas Fahrenkrug (Philo), Fausto Miro (Maron), Kevin Deas (Leonidas)
Spartan soldiers struggling to sleep (with visual aid showing frustration)
Nicholas Fahrenkrug (Philo), Fausto Miro (Maron), Neal Ferreira (Alpheus)
Lysia maps out her boycott plan
Kristen Watson (Dika), Jamie-Rose Guarrine (Charito), Christina English (Arete), Alexis Peart (Lampito), Anya Matanovič (Lysia), Maggie Finnegan (Xanthe), Katherine Beck (Myrrhine), Felicia Gavilanes (Sappho), Lucy Schaufer
