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Immersive opera at the Museum of Fine Arts Thursday
The Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg opens up gallery space Thursday for a different, yet complementary, art form.
Texas composer Nathan Felix, inspired by the In Carvaggio’s Light exhibit, created an all-new, site specific opera to be performed exactly once.
Felix’s The Meta Opera is immersive, in that the audience will move between several spaces along with the cast and the string trio (one scene also includes a piano).
Which is why the museum is calling Thursday’s event “Baroque Unbound.”
Felix (watching rehearsal from upper left) wanhted to bring opera off of the stage.
During a break from rehearsals Tuesday evening in the cavernous lobby, Felix discussed his innovative approach to opera in unexpected places.
“I started,” he explained, “because I kept seeing opera companies sort of phone it in – do the whole ‘aria behind a painting’ thing – or seeing a classical quartet just sit in a corner. They’re classical musicians just taking a paycheck. I thought, what a waste of an opportunity to have something truly artistic. And I thought ‘I can pitch something way better than this.’ Way more engaging.”
Felix, whose CV also includes symphonic music and country-infused Americana (he’s a singer/songwriter and guitarist as well) has written and produced approximately 20 site-specific operas in the United States and around the world. He also composes and produces traditionally-staged works.
“I grew up in Austin, and there was this museum called the Blanton, and it was very formative for me,” he said. “I would go there and see things that were just off the wall. And it really inspired me.”
Steven Alvarez conducts the string players.
His first immersive undertaking happened in 2019. “I think the challenging part is that I want to do things that are more complex,” Felix said. “But since the pandemic, the budgets have shrunk for art organizations.
“But that hasn’t deterred me, by keeping my casts smaller. I just keep trying to make the best work I can make. The biggest challenge is trying to navigate that.”
The St. Petersburg cast consists of six professional singers, the majority either local or regional. Felix hires them through the opera app YAP Tracker.
He was producing an immersive opera in Orlando last year when he approached the Museum of Fine Arts about the possibility of creating a similar experience here. “I don’t have any idea or conception of what I’m going to do until I go to the space. And that’s the fun part for me. Because we walk through and things just start to open up for me – ‘OK, I could put a performer up there,’ ‘I could do this,’ ‘it’s going to sound like this’ and so forth. And by the end of the walk, I pitch this idea to them.”
The exhibit consists of Old Master baroque paintings inspired by the innovative compositional techniques of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian, 1571–1610). At its center is one work (“Boy Bitten By a Lizard”) by Caravaggio himself.
Felix works with his vocal artists.
“A lot of the paintings they sent me were Jesus and his disciples, and so I leaned heavily on that, I don’t want to say religious aspect, but in terms of the context I referenced those religious figures,” Felix said.
“There are already operas that cover all this, so I wanted to find my own angle, but still keep it in that context of that religious iconography.”
The cast of The Meta Opera, which is sung (and spoken) in English, includers short sections of theater. This is the first time, Felix confessed, that he’s added the theatrical element. Experimentation, he said, is a key element of the process for him.
He believes the MFA audience will be moved by the dramatic music, and swayed by the immediate, immersive experience. “From a selfish perspective, I want them to not just experience opera in a different way, but I want them to engage in more physicality,” Felix said.
“I try to set up certain scenes where the audience can be involved. That’s what I’m always trying to explore.”
“Baroque Unbound” is presented 6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday. Find tickets at this link.
