Everything You Wanted to Know, But Were Afraid to Ask, about MOT’s “Night of the Living Opera” Reading
So. . .What IS a staged reading of an opera?
When writers type their last sentence, they are finished with their novels. When painters put the last dot of color on the canvas, they are finished with their portraits. But when the composers and librettists who create operas put the final flourishes on their book and score, it’s just the beginning. The next step – after the orchestrations and lyrics are committed to paper, but long before opening night – is a staged reading. This is a rudimentary performance so that the composition’s creators can actually hear the entire opera out loud – sung by a full cast and accompanied with at least the basic instrumentation; each voice distinct, each line spoken or sung, and each complicated crescendo lifted up by singers on a stage. If the opera writer and composer are very lucky, there is also an open-minded, supportive audience in the room, who is excited about hearing a brand-new work and willing to respond with questions, recommendations, and honest, real-time reactions.
This is the process that the very promising piece, Night of the Living Opera, enjoyed as the opening performance of Milwaukee Opera Theatre’s 2022-2023 season, just in time for Halloween. With the creative team of librettist Josh Perkins, composer Andrew Dewey, and co-creator Julianne Perkins sitting in the front row in the Studio Theatre, MOT welcomed audiences to a reading of their ultra creepy commission, during four performances at the Broadway Theatre Center.
They made an opera out of a black-and-white zombie movie?
Yes. Based on the 1968 cult horror movie Night of the Living Dead, this new dramatic work was “re-animated” with seven main vocalists and a four-person zombie chorus, who all sat onstage at music stands, accompanied by a double bass and keyboard that was sitting in for a 16 piece orchestra. Although a reading typically has little blocking, this one did have some rudimentary lighting – mostly red washes – to evoke a blood-filled, man-eating monster mood. Trying out some concepts for a future, fully-fledged production, Sea Beast Puppetry provided overhead projections of set sketches while Angry Young Men Ltd. lurked in the back with their life-size zombie puppets, complete with floppy, blood-red hands and terrifyingly blank faces.
The plot of the new opera follows the infamous original film for the most part, although the creators are beefing up the female protagonist Barbara, so that she can have a more interesting character arc and more agency. The basic story begins in a spooky cemetery where a brother/sister duo are coming to lay a wreath at their father’s grave. Then the zombies come, looking for human flesh to snack on. A battle ensues between the eaters and the soon-to-be eaten. There are desperate escapes, explosions, gun shots, dire television reports of a world-wide zombie emergency, lively debate about whether it’s safer to hide in the cellar or upstairs in a house, and intra-family murders that devolve into ghoulish meals.
Underneath all this blood and gore, the original movie by George A. Romero, has been called one of the greatest films of all time, the beginning of a genre, the reason for film ratings systems, a comment on race relations in America in the late 1960s, a condemnation of the Vietnam War, and a chronicle of rising anxiety around Cold War politics.
So, is it art? Is it even a good idea?
Based on this reading, I believe the answer to both questions is a resounding yes.
In the past Milwaukee Opera Theatre has performed works from the traditional opera and musical theater repertoire, in addition to a wide variety of off-beat pieces. The company has created opera experiences based on sci-fi comic books, novels about the Beach Boys, a Polish wedding, the history of the first woman to run for president, and spoken word poetry in a local pay-what-you-can cafe. The company has consistently pushed the envelope by performing all over Milwuakee, and during the pandemic they made art in parking lots, as well as over Zoom.
So the idea of commissioning an opera based on one of the most famous and ground-breaking horror movies of all time hardly seems like a stretch. In fact, the source material shares of a lot of elements with classical operas. Night of the Living Opera has heightened emotions, life and death conflict and passion in spades, very definite heroes and villains, and a wide array of characters who are forced to make harrowing choices. There’s not much young love to celebrate but, when finished, I believe the new opera may outdo Donicetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor for blood, carnage, and madness.
Musically, the opera sounds incredibly modern. After listening to a few pieces from the original soundtrack for Night of the Living Dead – which combines every percussive, pounding heartbeat, every soft, low note climbing up the scale with speed, volume, and intensity ending in a terrifying trill, and every standard, spooky trope to suggest that something is lurking out in the shadows and it is coming to get you – it’s obvious that this work is completely new. There’s no leaning on hackneyed movie music tricks, or even familiar melodies. The double bass provided a dark, brooding, quivering undertone to a lot of discordant lines that naturally make listeners uncomfortable. The performers communicated their panic and fear with frequent large jumps between high and low notes. Underneath the main characters’ laments in minor keys and dissonant notes, the zombie chorus literally moans – which is incredibly effective. Like all MOT shows, the performers’ voices were more than equal to the task.
Who are these people?
In this new rendition, the characters are distinct and mostly endearing. Barbara (Elizabeth Blood) is the typical “I don’t know what’s going on” victim in a horror scenario who vacilates between declaring she is brave and admitting she is terrified. As her brother Johnny, Ben Yela was the perfect first victim – goofy and gone too soon. Ben (Jerome Sibulo) is a strong hero type who takes charge and figures out a plan, albeit doomed from the start. Harry (Nathan Wesselwoski) is a great foil for the hero with his, “I’m the Dad and I need to be right” energy. Individually their vocal parts were challenging and often a-melodic, but always captivating. And together the cast created some really moving, complex soundscapes. And special kudos to the actress playing zombie-in-the-making, teenager Karen who had only one line but fully embodied the undead vibe through her physicality.
Any feedback for the creative team?
Because the opera is not yet finished there were some rather large plot holes in the reading, and since it wasn’t fully staged, a narrator filled in the gaps in the action for the audience. But even with these caveats, the story was hard to follow at times. Song lyrics were overly repetitive during some passages and relationships between characters could definitely be deepened. I’m hoping that as the creators mold the source material into a new form, they also find modern themes to underline, to make the splatter-fest mean something new, half a century after it was first shown to the public.
So, what’s next?
Revisions – probably lots of them – for Perkins, Dewey and Perkins. Now that they’ve heard most of the piece out loud, they can evaluate what worked and what didn’t. In all likelihood, some parts of the piece will be cut, others will be expanded. Characters will change. And hopefully we’ll be invited back to see a fully realized production in MOT’s 2023-2024 season. So if you missed this series of readings, don’t worry. . .the zombies will be waiting for you NEXT Halloween.