What do you get when you cross Edgar Allan Poe with the music of J.S. Bach and the songs of David Sylvian? This unique mashup forms the basis for the opera The Black Cat which has its US Premiere this week from Long Beach Opera at the Beverly O’Neill Theatre. The first performance is Saturday the 19th with a matinee to follow on Sunday.
So here’s the recipe. The story is by Poe. The Black Cat was a short story originally published by The Saturday Evening Post in 1843. It tells the story of a condemned man of questionable sanity. Instead of telling the story about his crime, he tells a story about a black cat. But through telling the feline’s story, he ultimately reveals the crime he has indeed committed.
One part of the music comes from Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantatas. The other part of the music comes from English singer/songwriter David Sylvian. He was part of the glam rock band Japan that arrived on the scene in the early 1970s. The band called in quits in the early 1980s and Sylvian went solo. His collaboration with Ryuichi Sakomoto lead to his highest-charting single, Forbidden Colors (from the film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.)
The Black Cat runs 80 minutes without an intermission and stars Nichols Mulroy. There are also two dancers, Sylvia Camarda and Jean-Guillame Weis. The production is directed by Frank Hoffman and has a very cinematic sensibility.
If you like your opera more adventurous and less traditional, this may be the production for you.
Photo by boshua/Courtesy of Long Beach Opera