This was the seventh time I’ve seen Soundstream’s Electric Messiah. It’s different every time of course but some things stay, more or less, as features. The biggest change this year is the shift from the Drake Underground to Crow’s Theatre. It’s staged as a conventional proscenium arch type show with the audience sitting in tiered rows facing the stage rather than being set up night club style. There’s no bar in the actual performance space but you can still take a drink to your seat. The drinks are cheaper than at the Drake too!
Today’s CD is a bit of an oddity and a bit of a period piece. It’s Paul Bowles’ 1953 work A Picnic Cantata setting a libretto by James Schuyler. It’s scored for two pianos and percussion plus a vocal cast of two sopranos and two altos. It’s hyperrealistic in detail and surrealistic in time line. The “plot” (roughly) is that friends decide to go on a Sunday picnic which is described in some detail, Then someone picks up the Sunday paper and starts to read bits from it. Then there’s a sort of clearing up and clearing out. Scene succeeds scene with almost breath-taking rapidity to complete a work that lasts less than half an hour
My review
operaramblings 