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 BMInt feature and interview HERE discusses Admao’s work and his collaboration with Rose.] 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.
Lysia, the heroine, upon earning the name of “Lysistrata,” or “bringer of peace” in ancient Greek, is provided with an actual husband, an Athenian general named Nico. Their marriage has been continually threatened by one conflict after another. All of their erotic quarreling gets tumbled together with the civic disorder created by war. Similar complications abound for the leader of the Spartan women, Lampito, and her husband, the Spartan general, Leonidas. Adamo focuses not only about who gets to be on the top in war, but also, and perhaps primarily about who occupies that position in love. Such conflicts have been irresolvable since the birth of the first alpha male and his temptress. And Adamo, unlike Aristophanes, cannot simply take one side; he strives (and mostly succeeds) to understand each. [It should perhaps be noted that Aristophanes’s comedic Lysistrata was, in many respects, a response to Euripides’s tragedy, The Trojan Women, from about four years earlier. Both plays deal with the suffering and horror of the 70-year long Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. But while Aristophanes satirizes the war’s complex, social, economic and political issues, Euripides applies the stories of Homer to detail the extreme use of force by both sides, which included executing all the men captured and enslaving women and children.]
In the double deus ex machina, that Adamo contrives in the play’s conclusion, the gods Aphrodite (Venus) and Ares (Mars) can restore peace, but the cessation of conflict can only be temporary. As Adamo’s deities tell his human beings in music at its majestic peak and its most ardently yearning, “Each of you will tell the truth; neither will agree.”
Adamo’s music certainly equals his poetically and wittily expressive libretto. His glittering and colorful orchestration is frequently lyrical and filled with yearning desire, especially in the arias and ensembles. This production, unlike some recent merely colorfully lighted concert versions At Symphony Hall benefited from expert acting and costumes. Stage director Adamo’s blocking never failed to show the opposition between Athenians and Spartans — except on the occasion after Mars and Venus made peace and perhaps on one or two occasions when Nico and Leonidas conferred. He seemingly took some inspiration from the great American stage director, Michael Kahn, who stage-directed the debuts of the opera in Houston and New York in 2015.
Heading the strong cast in the title role, soprano Anya Matanovic displayed a voluptuous and flexible voice and played her comic moments with flair and timing. Lucy Schaufer interpreted the bossy Kleonike with an impressive mezzo-soprano instrument, energetic and amusing stage presence. The secondary Athenian couple, Myrrhine and Kinesias, mezzo-soprano Katherine Beck brought a glorious and seamless timbre and baritone John Moore displayed a powerful and heroic thrust (even without his prop phallus). The striking, tall, and athletic mezzo-soprano, Alexis Peart made a wonderfully funny Lampito, the leader of the Spartan women. As her husband, the Spartan general Leonidas, bass-baritone Kevin Deas cut an imposing figure. Tenor Dominic Armstrong sang serviceably and intelligently as Nico, the lover of Lysia (later Lysistrata). All 17 members of the cast also served as the chorus, projecting with enunciation clear enough to make the excellent supertitles nearly superfluous.
Odyssey Opera Artistic Director Gil Rose conducted the orchestra with his customary intelligence. Rose’s balances always allowed the singers plenty of dynamic space, unlike Andris Nelsons, who often drowned out the singers in the BSO’s concert version of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt at Symphony Hall two weeks ago. The stage direction of the production was credited to Adamo, who took a bow afterward — along with the singers, Rose and the musicians — and who presumably took some inspiration from the great American stage director, Michael Kahn, who was responsible for the debut of the opera in Houston and other productions through 2025.
All in all, the quality of the production augurs a great CD.
Stephen Wigler has a peculiarly geekish interest in the piano and in pianists. He has served over the years as a staff music critic in Orlando and Baltimore.
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