"While I was very much looking forward to New Wave Opera's Atoms & Artifacts, featuringperformances of two West Coast Premieres at the Mago Hunt Theater at the University of Portland, I didn't expect it would be exciting in the way that it used to be to go see a double feature at the theater as a kid: two exciting presentations, adventures unknown awaiting."
"The first opera was Marie Curie Learns to Swim, by Jessica Rudman with libretto by Kendra Preston Leonard. Two women in early 20th-century bathing suits entered the stage for the opening scene, a blanket and some accoutrements on the ground as though we were at a beach. Soprano Lisa Neher painted a word-picture to a gentle vibraphone background: "Tiny stars glow in my pockets, illuminating my path," she sang."
"Appearing as she did sickly and frail, and with dark bruises on her arms, it wasn't hard to guess that the "tiny stars" she was singing about were the radium vials she carried in her pocket; radium, the great discovery that ended up killing her. "Always working in the light," she sang, "and I never feel tired." The score was often sparse and understated, with dialogues between piano and percussion interspersed with expansive tutti chord progressions."
New Wave Opera presented Atoms & Artifacts at the Mago Hunt Theater, offering two West Coast premieres. The first work, Marie Curie Learns to Swim by Jessica Rudman with libretto by Kendra Preston Leonard, staged two women in early 20th-century bathing suits and beach accoutrements. Soprano Lisa Neher and Lindsey Rae Johnson portrayed Marie and her daughter Irène, with staging that suggested radium vials and Marie's frailty. The score favored sparse, understated textures: gentle vibraphone, piano-percussion dialogues, pizzicato cello, dry tambourine, and cymbal trills, with pantomimed swimming rendered as a slow, evocative dance beneath broad piano and violin motifs.
Read at Oregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
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