Clearly his best small works, which attracted audiences in the millions during the era of the NBC Opera Theater, have outlived the ire of the self-righteous modernists of his time, work well on the stage today, and can still please crowds such as the one gathered at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center to witness the first professional American stage performance of Labyrinth. The 50-minute blend of satire, surrealism, and moralizing debuted on small home black and white screens (most of us did not own color sets) in 1963, and then completely disappeared, unlike the broadcast operas The Old Maid and the Thief, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Medium, The Telephone, and maybe The Last Savage, which enjoyed a respectable run at the Met. But solving the problem of Labyrinth required a total rethink of the weird, vivid, and varied staging from the original broadcast. Cambridge Chamber Ensemble’s Producer-Executive director Martha Birnbaum and Stage Director Michael Meraw took no truck with trying to duplicate the layered and often somewhat disembodying 1960s-period video effects. Rather, they focused on the singing and playing and went lite on projections and stage business.
Meraw kept things moving and saw to it that the cast developed genuine emotions despite the sometimes overt silliness of the words. He and Birnbaum wisely decided to open with a video of Menotti’s 1963 introduction. It looked wonderfully surreal as projected on the scrim and set the tone perfectly. In one interesting episode, images which might have come from Junhan Choi’s childhood family album, seemingly anticipated the flashing of life before dying. Too bad more was not done with projections to frame and differentiate some of the weirder moments.
Why did the director permit himself a meaning-changing liberty with the final scene? Menotti, who served as his own stage director in the televised version, told us that the show would end with a smile. In that version [45:45 HERE], Death induces the groom to lie down on a raised bier, assembling a coffin around him, as hammer blows sync with percussion thwaps. Death and his attendant carry away the empty coffin, after which the groom ambiguously opens his un-dead eyes, smiles, and brandishes key number one. Knowledge? Last night Death simply orders the groom to lie on the floor. Percussion blows don’t exactly serve as death knells. The Groom’s expiration date is confirmed by chorus members emerging and placing flowers on an immobile corpse. There is no smiling ambiguity.
Emma McGrory’s long wall of framed, decorated scrims clearly situated the action in a hotel corridor. An invisible orchestra of 20 sat behind the gauze, leaving a performance space of perhaps 4 x 30 feet. A chess game unfolded at a table on the house floor, an astronaut spun dizzily on the balcony, and a couple of built-out segments and the ends of the set housed a couple of scenes which must have been invisible to half the house (leaving many in the house unsure why the groom appeared topless), despite R.J. LaMura’s mood-alert lighting which backlighted those scenes. Brittanie Gigler costumed the bride and groom conventionally, but she dressed the spy in seductively goth black and red.
Lost in a grand hotel, the Groom, Junhan Choi and the Bride Emma Robertson can’t find the key and remember the room number no more. They were both in splendid voice and more than effaced my memories of the original leads, John Reardon and Judith Raskin. They put the words across, projected lustrous tones over the orchestra, and convinced us of the legitimacy of their agitation and lamenting. Choi’s big bronze tone worked well in the anxious recitatives and bloomed forth with great distinction in his big duet with the soprano. Robertson delivered “The Bride’s Song” with power and honesty of emotion.
In their quest for answers, the couple meets several well-cast but decidedly unhelpful characters. Bellboy Thai Johnson winked, nodded, pranced, and in one moment lip-synched to a horn as in Harpo. We couldn’t take our eyes or ears off the very saucy Spy, AddieRose Brown. Her pleasing mezzo ranged from a warm bottom up to a well-formed high range. Executive manager Courtney Elvira, whom we only saw and heard from behind a scrim, embodied agitation and indifference. Tenor Patrick Bessenbacher gave a credibly palsied account of the old man who was in no hurry to make his next chess move. In his pinpoint angst, he summoned memories of the fool in Boris Godunov. From the heights of the balcony, Astronaut Fred VanNess Jr. terrified us with brilliant tenorial terror as he dodged incoming meteors. Finally, Death (Andrew Boisvert) does Menotti’s version of the Commendatore’s statue scene, sealing the deal with a money-note low F.
The orchestra played passionately, powerfully, and in tune for conductor Stephanie Beatrice. She shaped the lyric parts well and gave the singers ample space for artistry. Without a doubt she helped make an effective case for Menotti’s mastery of musical theater. He assigned strong motifs for characters and situations and developed them intriguingly. He could satirize 19th-century Italian opera and out mallet Bartok…plus he could write a forthrightly lyrical lament worthy of basking in a diva spotlight. Concertmaster Ming-hang Tam spun out silken solos and pianist Libor Dudas made much of his important part. Winds, brass, percussion and strings all delivered on Menotti’s not inconsiderable demands. We heard unfailing generosity of invention and imagination in those 50 minutes.
On the basis of CCE’s very rewarding and successful efforts, Labyrinth deserves a life on stage. See it tonight or Sunday afternoon. Tickets HERE.
See related article HERE.
Cast
The Groom, Junhan Choi
The Bride, Emma Robertson
Old Man, Patrick Bessenbacher
Astronaut, Fred VanNess Jr.
Spy, AddieRose Brown
Executive Manager, Courtney Elvira
Death, Andrew Boisvert
Death’s Lackey, Jacob O’Shea
Non-singing roles
Executive Manager’s Assistant, Sara Mitnik
Bellboy, Thai Johnson
Artistic Team
Stephanie Beatrice, Conductor & Music Director
Michael Meraw, Stage Director
Martha Birnbaum, Producer
RJ LaMura, Lighting Designer
Brittanie Gigler, Costume Designer
T-Stop Productions, Videography
