Suprema by Opera Revue - Not a Half-baked Idea
Say what you will of Opera Revue, but you cannot say they lack for ambition.
If you’d told me six months ago that the crew, consisting of soprano Danie Friesen, baritone Alexander Hajek, and pianist Claire Elise Harris, had been engaged by Dr. Oetker to do an opera show for the launch of a new frozen pizza, I know more or less what I would have pictured. It would have been a scene out of one of their standard operatic parodies; charming, and doing a lot on a small budget, it would involve Claire playing something lovely from Verdi or Puccini, while Danie and Alex provided parody lyrics and chuckles in equal measure. There would be zany antics of one kind or another that slightly undercut the gravity of the source material, albeit in a loving way.
So I would have been completely wrong about the final product, Suprema the Opera, although I will stand by the words “charming” and “loving”. What the team has come up with is an original fourteen minute opera, in Italian no less, currently being performed for free at TD Music Hall. They have put something unique together, and while the Dr. Oetker social media promos make nary a mention of the performers apart from the digital playbill, you might just find an Opera Revue logo on stage if you look closely.1
A lot can happen in fourteen minutes, and Suprema uses that time to provide a tight piece of musical storytelling that captures your attention throughout.2 The narrative is a kind of Pygmalion story in which the Artist longs for something more as she works on her godly sculpture. The God comes to life and is perplexed by the peculiarities of modern living through a comical series of queries. He is ultimately won over less by the obvious beauty and charms of his leading lady and more by the surprisingly sumptuous and remarkably convenient Suprema pizza she pulls from the oven. While this is, to be fair, a mini-opera with a straightforward narrative arc, it is no less engaging for that. Perhaps the basic story would be too thin to sustain some overstuffed baroque opera, but I dare say a few items in the annals of opera buffa have made do with less.
The newly composed music strikes a good balance between having its own distinctive sound while providing something that evokes familiar Italian classics. It certainly shows its influences, but never seems too derivative. More importantly, music serves the story well. The piece opens with a lively, restless energy as the Artist returns home. A contemplative melody works its way in along with the soprano’s sad sighs, then some more ominous chords strike to accompany the rich rumbling of the baritone when her sculpture comes to life. Shortly thereafter they speed through a litany of modern conveniences with bouncy accompaniment from the piano, and all ends with the kind of satisfying harmonies you would expect from a tasty little romance. On the whole, it’s exciting to see that these guys can add original composition like this to their tool-kit.
Just when the story proper seems to have reached its logical conclusion, we get a finale that was more standard Opera Revue fare. The recognizable melody of “Libiamo” began and the singers switched to English to provide a rather more on the nose promo of the product. While it made for a fun encore I found that it also brought home the significance of what had preceded it. This classic parody route would have made for a perfectly adequate, if truncated, commercial application had this product launch been in the hands of a less ambitious team, and had made use of a less daring troupe. It would have made for an easy sixty-second spot, no one would complain, and we’d all have missed out on something. Fortunately, however, this was not a less ambitious team, and Opera Revue is nothing if not daring.
Moving to the performers themselves, let’s begin with Danie. Arriving on the scene as a slightly disheveled sculptor, she looks to have walked straight in from the lead role of a rom-com.3 Always a highly sympathetic presence on stage, she immediately conveys that necessary wistful feeling as she gives expressive voice to her lament while going about her routine. Her face makes for a compelling story-teller all by itself, and her reactions as she watches her sculpture come to life could just about get you to ignore Alex’s singing.4 The initial shock, even horror, gradually softens as she moves from stage right, and soon betrays a sense of delight and excitement. Later her obvious amusement at his antics magnified every bit of humour, at least from where I was sitting.
Alex, of course, brought a great deal of earnestness and charisma to his role. And while the score may have pulled some punches to avoid over-taxing the performers’ voices over the course of fifteen performances just this weekend, you might not even notice considering how his voice filled the room. Pairing his singing with some nigh-vaudevillian antics as he scrambled, shuffled and spun across the stage, he is a very dynamic presence here and kept up a remarkable pace throughout the day. As of about 7:30 PM he was even able to maintain apparent enthusiasm for eating pizza on stage for the eighth time that day.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for the group’s designated ‘orchestra’, I understand that Claire was responsible for the lion’s share of composing for the piece. In addition to sounding particularly good on the Yamaha piano,5 she also joined in with a speaking role, portraying a digital assistant that Alex unwittingly triggers. The sudden inclusion of her voice was as surprising to the audience as to the perplexed time-traveler, which really ensured that the joke landed. Claire, it must also be said, does give good robot.6
All told, I cannot quite picture another group doing this, and the finished product is just so much better than anything sponsored by a frozen pizza chain has any right to be. As I’ve said before, I believe the essential ingredient that really makes the Opera Revue machine work is that reckless sincerity with which they commit to even such an ostensibly commercial concept as this. To all appearances, on stage, Suprema gets the same level of emotional honesty as they would bring to Mozart or Verdi. It really works. Before yesterday I wouldn’t have expected that a duet about frozen pizza could ever get me a bit misty eyed, but here we are.
Also, if you were wondering, the pizza is actually pretty good. But feel free to get down to TD Music Hall and try it yourself.
UP NEXT: Boor on the Fringe, in which I try to fit 5-7 different shows from the Fringe Festival into one dispatch.
If you’re playing along at TD Music Hall right now and you just can’t find it, there’s an Opera Revue magnet on the door of the refrigerator where Danie’s character keeps the frozen pizza.
It’s compelling enough that I had to see them perform twice before realizing the obvious point that the eleven minute story, plus three minute finale for crispier crust, is showing the audience exactly how long to put the pizza in the oven for. I was too drawn in by the show to put two and two together.
Personally I’m picturing Kate & Leopold? You remember that one, with Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman? It’s probably just because of the time-travel dimension of the story.
This is barely an overstatement about someone whose performance is sufficiently magnetic that I have on occasion found it difficult to pay attention when the other person on stage is taking off their clothes…but let’s circle back on that another time.
No keyboards today!
I am reasonably sure she’ll take that compliment as intended, right?