How does an opera company stand out when it lacks the budget to produce grand extravaganzas? By looking to the future.
Opera Las Vegas is forging its artistic identity on the cutting edge of creation. In a genre often stereotyped as antiquarian, OLV is producing new work. It has launched a Living Composers and Librettists Initiative, and has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
For the first production of its 2021-2021 season, OLV presents the West Coast premiere of The Ghosts of Gatsby—which won a prize in 2019 from the National Opera Association—at the Space. The plot tells of Jazz Age author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s effort to write his masterpiece novel, The Great Gatsby, amid a cloud of jealousy, alcoholism and obsession.
Holed up on the French Riviera, Scott is distracted by his wife Zelda’s alleged infidelities. In an boozy fever dream, he sees three versions of his wife, each at a different age. Sopranos Kayla Wilkens, Athena Mertes and Kimberly Gratland James play the Zeldas. Arizona Opera’s artist-in-residence Rob McGinness plays Fitzgerald.
The tight, 60-minute show begins with an entertaining 15-minute vaudevillian prologue, in which the performers sing jazzy tunes of love won and lost. “You think it’s generalized, but it’s actually very specific, because they use the words that F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda actually spoke or wrote,” explains James Sohre, general director for Opera Las Vegas.
The show features a buffet of Nevada talent, including contributions from the Las Vegas Philharmonic, UNLV’s opera department and Opera on Tap. Daz Weller, executive artistic director of Vegas Theatre Company, directs. “We’re trying to make it a real community coalition, saying, ‘Hey, the arts are back onstage in Las Vegas.’” Sohre says.
As for music lovers who might be intimidated by the word “opera,” Sohre wants all to know that “this is very accessible music.” Unlike the “discordant” tones of some contemporary classical music, Sohre says Gatsby offers “tunes that could be in a musical review of the ’20s. And the opera itself is very tuneful.”
One of the best and most unique aspects of opera, Sohre says, is that several characters can express different emotions through song at the same time. “That can’t happen in any other art form,” Sohre says. “But these are sustained and deeply felt emotions that layer over each other. … We have chords and harmonies [that] are very beautiful and dramatic and interesting to hear. You not only have the solo moments that are in the piece, but also these great dialogues.”
The opera is sung in English, but to promote full understanding, there are also English subtitles. Opera Las Vegas wants its audiences to feel welcomed.
“There’s nothing [viewers] have to bring, except their curiosity,” Sohre says. “We’ve always surprised people that it can be something really relevant and really easy to understand.
The Ghosts of Gatsby is just the start for a season of music au courant. Future shows include The House Without a Christmas Tree (November 19-21), Approaching Ali (January 21-23), Strawberry Fields/Trouble in Tahiti (April 22-24) and Tosca (June 10-12). Visit operalasvegas.com for show details.
The Ghosts of Gatsby October 1-3 Friday-Saturday 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m.; $25-$45. The Space, 702-263-6604.
