Oregon Music News

Photo credit: Emily Zahniser Sinclair

The Electric Opera Company opened their opera production, Barber of Bridgetown, Thursday July 22nd at 7:30 at the Scottish Rite Auditorium. The opera is a modern conception of Giaochino Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville, including endearing references to Portland and a sardonic look at the “emo” culture of disaffected youth. The orchestra plays Rossini’s original score note for note, but the EOC’s orchestra consists of several electric guitars, two synthesizers and a drum kit. The players sing Rossini’s arias and recitative as well, only with an English libretto that features occasional Internet slang.

The character of Rosina, played by Danielle Larson, is re-envisioned as a young scene queen video blogger, whose posts win the heart of Ken Richman, played by Scot Crandal. Ken is an updated version of Almavivo, and the son of a wealthy record mogul. Figaro, played by Bobby Ray, is a rock star confronted with paparazzi and avid fans, but his passion for pomade and aftershave causes him to supplement his income from gold records by working as a barber. The music teacher Basilio became Basilia, a Hare Krishna serving as Councilman Bartolo’s spiritual advisor. Bartolo intends to marry Rosina to get at her inheritance, but Ken’s romantic love notes and blog comments threaten to thwart Bartolo’s plan.

As the overture begins and the house lights dim, the music sounds light and highbrow, with a very Classical air, offset only by the unusual timbres of the electric instruments. As the music builds, however, it becomes a driving confluence of surprisingly hard-hitting riffs (original to Rossini’s score) and flurries of notes, with as much rock and roll power as the keyboard solo on Deep Purple’s “Highway Star.”

Bobby Ray, a founding member of the Electric Opera Company, who also arranged the music for rock orchestra, played Figaro, nicknamed “The Fig,” brilliantly. With his booming baritone, he sang the opera’s most well known aria, “Largo al factotum,” in which Figaro strokes his ego with self-indulgent exuberance. Singing with operatic ease, Ray accompanied himself on electric guitar, a feat many rock front men struggle to pull off. As he sang “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro…” in the opera’s famous musical strain, he played the same arpeggios on electric guitar, illustrating how Figaro earned his rock star status.

This production is wonderfully entertaining and brilliantly conceived. Classical music and electric guitar mix as agreeably as cereal and milk, and this group took admiration for the classics significantly farther than 1970s prog-rock bands such as Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The choruses of the second act filled the auditorium with radiant harmonies. Each singer’s talent is striking, and the updated setting makes the opera accessible to a wide audience. With just the right amount of nonsense, including Figaro’s identity as a barber, and the presence of a Mexican wrestler and an Elvis impersonator, EOC’s first full-length opera production is a success. There are two remaining shows: Friday July 23^rd at 7:30, and Sunday July 25^th at 2:00.