Never Mind the Plot in ‘Alcina’

Performers in “Alcina,” produced by Early Music Now and Milwaukee Opera Theater. Photo by Mark Frohna Photography

It is assuredly the most unusual opera of the season. It’s a performance of a 1735 opera by George Frideric Handel that’s full of baroque early music flourishes, in the most unusual setting (the Dandy vintage furniture and bric-a-brac store at 5020 W. Vliet St.) with 88 patrons per show seated on couches, plush chairs and, if you’re unlucky, folding chairs — with one of the shortest runs (ending with two shows Sunday Nov. 17) and some of the finest as well as campiest aria singings you’ll ever enjoy.

Alcina – shortened to 80 minutes from three acts by using a drag queen narrator to help us fumble through one of those elaborately crazy and lengthy plots – is a concoction of Early Music Now, with string heavy chamber orchestra, and six opera singers from Milwaukee Opera Theatre, chosen for different shadings of voices and turned loose with humor, mugging and even handing such props as a beer can and a lamp to the audience in the spirit of mutual conspiracy.

The nasty looks singers toss at each other in this musical combat (Alcina is a sorceress who likes to turn her lovers into animal or inanimate objects) are of an exaggerated spirit. Director Jill Anna Ponasik’s always entertaining audacity is sometimes forced in this winking at and with the patrons. But the singing-orchestra balance is firmly controlled.

Believe me, there is no help for you in explaining the characters, since the weakest part of the event is enduring the attempts to impose meaning within the interaction of some 12 arias. But the singing! Tenor Nick Lin and baritone-near bass David Guzman can both ham it up and impale us with their quality.

As Alcina, Cecilia Davis may be the standout in depth and subtle control, but there is also excellent work by Kristin Knutson Berka, Jackie Willis and Kaisa Herrmann. There has been much care taken in varying mezzo, alto, lyric and dramatic soprano moments, and knowing how to range soft and low among them.

There are a few lights and lamps always on around the place as the action is set on a huge oriental rug with the audience seated around, while some action takes place behind us. But this is not about the acting, which is meant to indicate, not embody. It is the singing, which despite the hamming up atmosphere, that is excellently handled at its core.

Some shows are nearly sold out for Alcina. Tickets from $28 to $38 are available a half hour before shows at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday plus earlier shows Sunday. You’ll find more information at Early Music Now’s website.

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.

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