Soprano Chelsea Basler poses in the Boston Lyric Opera’s mobile Street Stage.
The Boston opera scene felt revitalized pre-pandemic, with a growing set of versatile troupes exploring adventurous corners of the repertory. Even the genre’s flagship company, the Boston Lyric Opera, without a permanent home, has embraced that challenge and made the most of peripatetic performances.
But now every troupe has been silenced.
Major opera productions will probably be the last performances to return to normal. Witness New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the country’s largest arts organization, shuttering entirely until fall 2021.
The singing world has been devastated; audiences must realize that as the performance shutdown persists, more and more singers will never take the stage again. Careers are too short, finances too precarious, and the virus risks will clearly persist longer for singers than for other musicians.
The BLO certainly hasn’t given up though. A major digital content channel called [insert:opera] runs on the BLO’s streaming platform, operabox.tv. It will offer new works, including an eight-part series, “Desert In,” developed by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Ellen Reid.
A mobile effort, BLO Street Stage, tours the city’s neighborhoods by truck. The breadth of the BLO’s offerings (there’s even a book club, and bedtime lullabies) needs to be investigated online at blo.org.
Boston’s smaller troupes keep the flame burning as well. Guerilla Opera (guerillaopera.org) takes its typical we-can-do-that approach to virtual stagings, with pop-up concerts, podcasts, workshops and archived Watch Party revivals.
Anne Azéma directs a new production by the Boston Camerata of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” created specifically for the screen. Soloists, chorus, and chamber orchestra were blended together using a concept from media designer Peter Torpey. Tahanee Aluwihare and Luke Scott sing the title roles. The production will be available for two weeks beginning November 14. Tickets ($10–$50) are available at bostoncamerata.org.
Tahanee Aluwihare sings Dido in the Boston Camerata’s made-for-screen version of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,:” Nov. 14.
The Boston Early Music Festival (bemf.org) cannot live-stage its traditional Thanksgiving weekend chamber opera, so this year the group streams two operas, for free. “Looking Back at Orpheus” examines both Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” (Nov. 27) and Charpentier’s “La Déscente d’Orphée aux Enfers (Nov. 29).
Boston Baroque, longtime pillars of staged period-opera productions, began its concert season in September with a virtual presentation of Beethoven’s “Fidelio”—remember how 2020 was to be a Beethoven 250 commemoration? The group’s monthly subscription schedule also includes Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” in November. Access through bostonbaroque.org.
White Snake Projects (whitesnakeprojects.org) shifted nimbly from a world premiere of Elena Ruehr’s “Cosmic Cowboy”—scheduled for September, but impossible to produce—to a digital opera, “Alice in the Pandemic,” composed by Jorge Sosa.
Yes, it’s that Alice (sung by soprano Carami Hilaire), and countertenor Daniel Moody sings the White Rabbit. Family tickets are priced at $25–$145, and the stream will be available Oct. 23–27. Ruehr’s “Cosmic Cowboy” will premiere in 2021.
The Boston Opera Collaborative (bostonoperacollaborative.org) did perform an outdoor Opera in the Gardens set in September, but its popular Opera Bites—a rich program of 10-minute operas—has been postponed.
After a decade of smaller productions, in 2017 MetroWest Opera renamed itself MassOpera (massopera.org), and re-focused to become more inclusive in every way: repertory, casting, artistic direction. Sadly the pandemic put those ambitions on hold. At present, master classes dot the schedule, but no performances.
Odyssey Opera (odysseyopera.org) has no concerts scheduled. Neither does the Commonwealth Lyric Theater (commonwealthlyrictheater.com), although its teaching tool “Musical Window” has a live-stream schedule.
Last week’s non-opera preview ought to have mentioned Emmanuel Music’s Late Night at Emmanuel summer sessions, which have passed their live-stream date but are still available for free at emmanuelmusic.org. Well-known artists like Kendra Colton, Sarah Moyer and Sarah Darling are featured.
Keith Powers covers music and the arts for Gannett New England, Opera News and Leonore Overture. Follow @PowersKeith; email to keithmichaelpowers@gmail.com.