Eliogabalo

About

Mark Streshinsky directed this outdoor production at the Bruns Amphitheater as part of West Edge Opera’s 2021 summer festival. Embracing the eclectic tone of 17th‑century Venetian opera, the staging mixed high tragedy with bawdy camp and low comedy. Evan Streshinsky’s spare, thematic design featured a huge tilted bed and eight tufted‑red panels evoking a seedy motel room. The show leaned into explicit themes of licentious freedom, with a corps of six scantily clad dancers choreographed by Associate Director Benjamin Freedman, and one aria sung in full frontal nudity by countertenor Matheus Coura. Characters occasionally broke the fourth wall, slipping from Italian into English to banter and solicit the audience. Musically, conductor Adam Pearl led from the harpsichord, heading a six‑player period ensemble (two violins, viola, theorbo, cello, keyboards). Because of outdoor conditions, the band played under the stage with careful miking and balance to support the unamplified singers.