The opera-theater festival’s two big shows, ‘prism’ and ‘4.48 Psychosis,’ portray varieties of mental chaos.

A scene from Ellen Reid’s ‘prism’ at the Prototype Festival Photo: Maria Baranova 0 Comments By Heidi Waleson Jan. 9, 2019 4:50 p.m. ET

New York

The opera-theater pieces of the Prototype Festival tackle unconventional subjects, often in uncomfortable ways, and two big shows of its seventh season are no exception. At La MaMa, Ellen Reid’s gripping “prism” (it had its world premiere in November at the LA Opera) starts out mysteriously. Who are these two women, Bibi (Anna Schubert) and Lumee (Rebecca Jo Loeb), snuggled in bed together in a cozy white room whose door has multiple locks? Bibi can barely stand. Lumee tries to get her to take medicine; she spits it out. They recite a sequence of nonsense words and enact rituals. There’s talk of memory and forgetting; that yellow is safe, but blue, which is outside the door, is not; that Bibi is getting worse, and her bones will soon turn to dust. Is Lumee Bibi’s protector, or something more sinister?

The strangeness of Roxie Perkins’s libretto turns out to be deliberate. This is an internal struggle, a depiction of PTSD following a sexual assault, and the things ricocheting around inside the sufferer’s head probably don’t make sense to anyone else. However, Ms. Reid’s urgent, kaleidoscopic music clearly supplies the turbulent emotional soundtrack of Bibi’s world: the sweet, Copland-like melodies with strings, harp and flute that evoke the safety of forgetting; the horn and percussion that accompany her will to remember and heal; the alluring offstage chorus that tempts her to stand up and open the door. The music gets wilder, with infusions of rock and electronics, in the flashback Act II, which depicts the precipitating event—a sexual assault in a club. Act III is a swifter, grittier replay of Act I, ending with Bibi’s escape.

Ms. Schubert’s pure, naked soprano gave a piercing intensity to Bibi’s pain, and her acting of physical impairment was persuasive; Ms. Loeb’s mezzo, alternately soothing and threatening, made her an intriguing foil. (It’s not clear if Lumee is really Bibi’s mother, who left her child alone to be assaulted and is now overcompensating, or simply a voice in Bibi’s head, but the ambiguity is interesting.) The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and the instrumental ensemble Novus NY, conducted by Julian Wachner, were splendid.

James Darrah’s elaborate production provided this mental world with a vivid, concrete shape. Designer Adam Rigg’s creepy all-white room gave way to 24 hanging disco balls to represent the club, and then to the messy squat of Act III; Pablo Santiago drenched the sets with colored light; Molly Irelan did the costumes, which included a childish baby-doll nightgown for Bibi in Act II. Four dancers, in writhing choreography by assistant director Chris Emile, represented the danger and excitement of the world outside the room of forgetting.

A scene from Philip Venables’s ‘4.48 Psychosis’ Photo: Paula Court

As an experience of psychological disturbance, Philip Venables’s “4.48 Psychosis,” at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, makes “prism” look like a walk in the park. Based on the final play of Sarah Kane, who suffered from mental illness and killed herself at age 28 in 1999, “4.48 Psychosis” is 90 relentless minutes of raw pain and mental chaos.

Six women, headed by soprano Gweneth-Ann Rand, speak and sing as the voices of the protagonist; they are often drowned out by the heavily amplified 14-member orchestra (Contemporaneous, conducted by William Cole), which includes saxophones and an accordion. Mr. Venables varies his techniques, but even the musically calmer moments are full of agony. A Baroque-like lament is overwhelmed by strings that wail like sirens; texts of conversations between the patient and her doctor, projected on the wall of the set, are violently pounded out by two percussionists (at one point, the doctor is represented by a snare drum, at another, a saw). A long list of drugs, with their terrible side effects and ultimate failure to make any difference, becomes a litany, accompanied by a rollicking orchestra, that is almost comic in its grotesqueness. A blast from an organ ushers in a moment of religious contemplation and clarity, soon exploded into a vocal and instrument cacophony so extreme that the only recourse is electroshock therapy. Yet through the noise you hear the patient’s longing, however hopeless, for some connection that will allow her to stay alive.

This Royal Opera House, Covent Garden production, originally staged at the Lyric, Hammersmith in London in 2016, was directed by Ted Huffman.Hannah Clark’s simple set is a shallow white box with three doors, a few chairs and a table (the orchestra is positioned above); D.M. Wood’s stark lighting alternately floods and shadows this bleak world. The six women, all in the same gray sweater, jeans and sneakers, convincingly portray the protagonist’s fragmented mind, whether they are challenging and throttling each other or singing in ensemble. It’s a place where no one could want to live. If 90 minutes is too long, it’s excruciating to imagine what it would be like for years.

—Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).

Francesco Cilea’s opera isn’t a top-tier work, but the David McVicar production at the Met elevates it to new levels.

Piotr Beczala as Maurizio and Anna Netrebko in the title role of Francesco Cilea’s ‘Adriana Lecouvreur’ Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera By Heidi Waleson Jan. 3, 2019 3:02 p.m. ET

New York

Francesco Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur” (1902) isn’t a top tier opera title; it is a rip-roaring, old-fashioned diva show, which over the years has given star vocalists like Renata Tebaldi and Renata Scotto a chance to strut their stuff. The new David McVicar production that opened at the Metropolitan Opera on New Year’s Eve took that legacy seriously and then some: It boasted a stellar quartet of principal singers, a sensitive conductor, and a staging that tried valiantly to infuse the creaky plot with some depth.

“Adriana” is based on the true story of a famous actress of the Comédie-Française who died under mysterious circumstances in 1730. Librettist Arturo Colautti adapted the 1849 play (by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé) on the subject; in the opera, the complicated political and social intrigues of both the history and the play are whittled down, sometimes confusingly, to a romantic triangle. Adriana is in love with Maurizio, whom she believes to be an officer in the service of the Count of Saxony, though he is actually the count himself, in disguise; the Princess of Bouillon is also in love with the Count. The actress takes revenge on the aristocrat with a recitation from “Phédre,” but the princess gets the win with a bunch of poisoned violets. Bits of 18th-century flavor remain in the brief comic scenes of gossip and scheming that surround the big showpiece arias, and Cilea’s masterly orchestration, with its hints of Wagner, ties the whole thing together.

The Met cast was top-notch. Soprano Anna Netrebko had some pitch issues in “Io son l’umile ancella,” Adriana’s opening manifesto about being the humble servant of art, but she soon settled down and delivered a vocally resplendent performance, milking the role’s wide range, especially the astonishing low notes of “Poveri fiori,” the aria about those violets, for all it was worth. Her acting wasn’t subtle—you could almost see the teeth marks in the set during Adriana’s despair, delirium and death in Act IV—but she sounded great.

She had a worthy foil in the remarkable Anita Rachvelishvili, who deployed her rock-solid, voluptuous mezzo with focused intensity as the manipulative Princess of Bouillon. Their duet in darkness in Act II, in which neither knows the other’s identity, was a high point of the evening. Piotr Beczala’s handsome, burnished tenor reflected Maurizio’s soldierly aggression, but had enough lyricism to make him persuasive as a lover. Baritone Ambrogio Maestri was immensely touching as Michonnet, the old stage manager who hopelessly loves Adriana and tries to protect her, and his textual clarity in the conversational passages was exemplary. Maurizio Muraro and Carlo Bosi were enjoyable as the primary intriguers, the Prince of Bouillon and his sidekick, the Abbé of Chazeuil. In the pit, Gianandrea Noseda led a flowing, expressive performance, with the solo violin and harp that accompany the lovers rising ethereally from the orchestration’s alluring, multi-hued texture.

Carlo Bosi and Anita Rachvelishvili Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera

Mr. McVicar’s production, first done at London’s Royal Opera House in 2010, plays with the idea of artifice: Charles Edwards’s ingenious and attractive set features a replica of a baroque theater, which is seen from a different perspective in each act. The point seems to be that only Adriana, the actress, is actually sincere, but that concept warred a bit with Ms. Netrebko’s stagey manner. Still, the production detail was wonderful. I especially liked the baroque-style set changes and effects during the “Judgment of Paris” ballet in Act III, though Andrew George’s choreography of the ballet itself was overly goofy. Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s costumes were luxuriously period, as was Adam Silverman’s lighting, and Mr. McVicar’s keen sense of pacing and subtle direction of the supporting singers, creating the vivid atmosphere of an 18th-century theater troupe, made the evening more than just an opportunity for diva display.

Adriana Lecouvreur

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