Tuned In: Tempest in the opera pit: Berkeley West Edge gives voice to Shakespeare’s Caliban in new production

Written on July 18, 2011 – 5:25 pm | by Cameron Hussey

A plot twist in Shakespeare’s late-in-life masterpiece “The Tempest” always has left me scratching my head in puzzlement. It’s that quick, behind-the-scenes attitude adjustment Caliban undergoes, morphing from seething, resentful brute with designs on his slave master Prospero’s life at the end of Act 4 to meek, contrite subservient willing to “be wise hereafter and seek for grace” at his reappearance at the end of Act 5.

That sleight of hand apparently has not escaped librettist Amanda Moody and composer Clark Suprynowicz’s attention, either. They are collaborators on the opera “Caliban Dreams,” which will have its world premiere in its current form July 30 at Berkeley West Edge Opera’s El Cerrito Theater for the Performing Arts. And as it is a coproduction of West Edge and the Sonoma County Arts Council affiliate First Look Sonoma, the opera will have a second run in mid-August at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park.

Composers have been dipping into “The Tempest” for inspiration practically since the ink from Shakespeare’s quill was drying on the folio. There have been at least four dozen full-blown operatic riffs on the story of the eerie, remote island ruled by a rationalist magician, ranging from Henry Purcell’s take on it in 1695 to British composer Thomas Ades’ version that debuted at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in 2004.

Suprynowicz and Moody, for their part, have expanded on Shakespeare’s 400-year-old story by narrowing its focus to the two pivotal, contrasting characters of Caliban, the tortured, beastlike human who chafes under Prospero’s rule, and the lively, good-humored sprite Ariel, also enslaved but a willing instrument and co-conspirator of the master. I won’t delve too much further into the plot, but the collaborators have made it their mission to illuminate what goes on between the two to effect Caliban’s mysterious transformation. They’re billing it as a “do-or-die battle of wits, wills and spells.”

The composer and librettist, who is also a singer and actress, have worked together before, on her solo outing in the acclaimed theater piece “Serial Murderess” in 2001. Suprynowicz’s “Chrysalis,” commissioned for what was formerly known as Berkeley Opera, was a hit in its 2006 season.

Their ace in the hole on “Caliban Dreams” may well lie in the casting of Caliban — renowned Bay Area tenor John Duykers, a champion of contemporary opera who has sung in more than 61 world premieres. He is both a gifted singer and a compelling actor — and very good indeed at bringing dark, complicated characters to life. He created the role of Chairman Mao in John Adams’ “Nixon in China.” More recently, he projected both menace and cowardliness as the captain in Berg’s “Wozzeck” in 2010 and registered as a sinister, shape-shifting chauffeur to the underworld in Philip Glass’ “Orphee” earlier this year. (Both productions were presented by the Ensemble Parallele in San Francisco.)

Ariel — here apparently a feminine character, though it is not always thus — will be sung by soprano Laura Bohn, a Luciano Pavarotti Memorial Scholarship winner and former resident artist at Syracuse Opera.

Directing the opera will be Melissa Weaver, Duykers’ wife and co-founder, with him, of Sonoma First Look. Berkeley West Edge music director Jonathan Khuner will conduct the East Bay performances, and Lynne Morrow will be at the podium in Sonoma.

The chamber orchestra for the opera will be enhanced by percussion instruments from around the globe — the single-stringed bow the berimbau, hailing from Portuguese Brazil; the ratchety-sounding hollow gourd the Dominican guiro; the high and squeaky friction drum the cuica, associated with samba, and the sub-Saharan thumb piano the kalimba will be deployed to lend the touch of exotica that this story calls for.

Another unusual element will be the projection of Balinese-style shadow imagery on a circular screen overhead, with dancers below manipulating the flitting shapes as ideas — and dreams — pop in and out of our Caliban’s head. The cast also includes the Furies (Aimee Puentes, Alexis Lane Jensen and Scott Graff), trapped under a spell in a large tree but there to inflame and bedevil Caliban and represent his basest impulses while Ariel, their sister fairy, is free to fly about and work her magic on him.

Ancora, the teen girls’ component of Robert Geary’s Piedmont Choirs, will portray an “Enchanted Chorus of Creatures,” and the creature movement will be choreographed by Mary Alice Fry. Costuming will be by Romy Douglass. Chad Owens is the production designer and Lucas Krech will provide lighting.

Details: 8 p.m. July 30 and Aug. 5, 2 p.m. Aug. 7 at El Cerrito High School, 540 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets, $15-$69, at 510-841-1903 or . Also: 8 p.m. Aug. 12 and 2 p.m. Aug. 14 at Person Theater, Sonoma State University, East Cotati Avenue-South Entrance, Rohnert Park. Tickets, $15-$40, at 707-763-8920.

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