{"id":491455,"date":"2026-10-10T10:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T10:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/491455\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T10:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T10:36:07","slug":"long-beach-opera-opens-busy-season-with-palate-cleansers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/491455\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Opera opens busy season with palate cleansers –"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo<\/a>Photo by JJ Geiger.<\/p>\n

Because Long Beach Opera\u2019s 48th season<\/a> features their biggest-ever bill of fare, perhaps it\u2019s fitting to start with what director James Darrah Black referred to as \u201caperitifs.\u201d Thus, the so-called \u201cAperghis Trilogy,\u201d three short works by George Aperghis performed for one night only aboard the Queen Mary, which hosts five of the season\u2019s seven shows.<\/p>\n

Associated with terms like \u201cexperimental,\u201d \u201cunconventional sounds,\u201d and \u201ctheatrical chamber music,\u201d Aperghis\u2019s compositions fit snugly within LBO\u2019s penchant for programmatic aleatory work since Black took over as artistic director. The first of the trio (not actually a trilogy, as there\u2019s no connecting thread) was Le corps \u00e0 corps, a solo performance by Brian Cannady on hand drum and vocals, with the latter eventually moving from onomatopoeia into a fractured narrative of a bloody race. While not especially compelling musically or narratively, Cannady\u2019s focus and presence was enough to capture and hold the room\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

Second up was Les sept crimes de l\u2019amour, seven sequences featuring Cannady, saxophonist M.A. Tiesenga, and soprano Habin Kim working themes dictated by narrator Marjorie Beale. For example, in Sequence 3: \u201cThe singer is lying on the knees of the two instrumentalists. She holds a vertical clarinet tube against her mouth. The clarinet player applies the clarinet to the singer\u2019s throat. The percussionist plays on the soles of the singer\u2019s feet.\u201d While the program notes call this work a \u201ctheatrical exploration of music, movement, and staging [which] unfolds across seven darkly charged scenes,\u201d to me \u2014 admittedly, someone who isn\u2019t especially charmed or intrigued by the likes of Aperghis \u2014 it came across as only a quaint, playful series of exercises, including elements like Kim vocalizing while eating an apple (which is cute, I guess).<\/p>\n

R\u00e9citations featured Kim and Geneva Jacuzzi, decked out in a parachute harness-cum- straitjacket, engaging in what the program notes calls a \u201crelentless conversation that pushes the boundaries of the human voice through precision and raw expression.\u201d While that may be a bit of an overstatement, the 35 minutes of interwoven, mostly wordless a cappella \u2014 with director Black onstage at times literally pulling the straps\/strings \u2014 ended with a tableau of Kim looking at Jacuzzi expectantly as they sat in silence for minutes on end.<\/p>\n

All of the performers were more than equal to their tasks \u2014 par for the course for LBO. Kim and Jacuzzi had some particularly beautiful moments near the end, a bit reminiscent of Lisa Gerrard\u2019s work on the Gladiator soundtrack. And though there wasn\u2019t much to Prairie T. Trivuth\u2019s mise en sc\u00e8ne, when you\u2019re staging in one of the Queen Mary\u2019s elegant salons, you start out more than halfway home.<\/p>\n

There was, however, a logistical problem. Throughout all three pieces, a bar located not far behind the audience was a constant source of noise, from ice tinkling and glasses clinking to the whirring of a point-of-sale terminal spitting out credit-card bills. During Le corps \u00e0 corps the various sounds were quiet enough that I thought perhaps they might have been part of the performance (ice chips dropped into glasses can sound quite like quick strokes of a tiny xylophone), but by Les sept crimes de l\u2019amour, when consistent use of a stapler joined the sonic milieu, it was a notable distraction. As the noise continued, it became obvious that, for reasons passing understanding, this salon had been chosen for the preparation of drinks and processing of transactions far beyond the confines of the Queen\u2019s Salon. LBO patrons can only hope that better arrangements will be made for the season\u2019s remaining four shows aboard the historic ship.<\/p>\n

After the show, Black referred to LBO\u2019s season opener as aperitifs, a fitting metaphor for a show that was more palette cleanser than main course. While it\u2019s unlikely that any of these three Aperghis works left a lasting impression on those who made their way to the Queen Mary, they may have successfully whetted the appetite for what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by JJ Geiger. Because Long Beach Opera\u2019s 48th season features their biggest-ever bill of fare, perhaps it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[191642,191643,9720,191644,191645,76343,191646,191647,191648,96450,191649,131,133,132,9722],"class_list":["post-491455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-artsandculture","tag-contemporaryopera","tag-curtaincall","tag-experimentalopera","tag-georgeaperghis","tag-longbeacharts","tag-longbeachopera","tag-operareview","tag-performingarts","tag-queenmary","tag-sanpedroarts","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-rln"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}