PORTLAND, Ore. — It is fairly uncommon to hear voice and string quartet paired at a concert in which pop and classical styles have been blended. But Portland Opera, in a collaboration with Papermoon Opera Productions, opened its 60th season by presenting The Juliet Letters, an evocative collection of songs for the lovelorn by English rocker Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet. A very full house at the Artists Repertory Theatre heard this unusual mélange on Nov. 15 sung by the Portland Opera’s Resident Artists, who were accompanied by a string quartet drawn from the company’s orchestra.
Known primarily as a singer and songwriter, Costello (born Declan MacManus) dipped into the classical field in 1989 after hearing the Brodsky Quartet perform a concert of Shostakovich. It turned out that the Brodsky musicians were big fans of Costello. That led to a collaborative effort on text and music alike: Costello had heard about letters to Shakespeare’s Juliet that tourists leave at her supposed balcony in Verona, Italy; he and the Brodskys wrote a group of stylized, fictional letters, delving into the ups and downs of young love and other aspects of the human condition. After Costello and the Brodsky Quartet recorded the songs on the Warner Bros. Records label in 1993, the album climbed to number 18 on the pop charts in England and peaked at 125 on the Billboard 200.
Portland Opera’s presentation of The Juliet Letters was expertly directed by Fenlon Lamb, who made her company debut in 2023 with The Marriage of Figaro. Designer Jefferson Ridenour effectively set the scene with a network of clotheslines pinned with letters that were plucked from time to time. Exceptional lighting by Nate Wheatley included snippets of projected text onto huge sheets of paper, which helped with transitions from song to song. This was the second time that Papermoon Opera Productions designed a production of The Juliet Letters. The first was for Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 2017.
The Juliet Letters covered a range of emotions with most of the songs expressing unrequited love. They were divided among the Resident Artists: soprano Ginaia Black, mezzo-soprano Erin Roth Thomas, tenor Nathaniel Catasca, and baritone Matthew Maisano. Highlights included Black’s trenchant performance of “Why?,” in which divorce shattered a young child (“If you both love me so/Why don’t you love each other?”).
Thomas mined a lover’s suspicion and disappointment in “For Other Eyes.” Catasca unleashed operatic high notes in “The First to Leave,” which also dealt with lost love. With a Cheshire grin, Maisano took on the role of the devil in “This Offer Is Unrepeatable” (“Just sign on the line. Could you possibly write it in blood?”).
The string quartet, consisting of violinists Margaret Bichteler and Jennifer Estrin, violist Hillary Oseas, and cellist Dylan Rieck, played with great sensitivity. They were conducted by Dereau Farrar, who made his Portland Opera debut with this production.
The evening began with mezzo-soprano Hannah Penn singing Shakespeare Songs by British composer Howard Blake. Although Blake is known mostly for his scores for film and TV, he has written more than 650 pieces, including works for symphony orchestra, chamber ensemble, chorus, opera, and ballet.
Inspired by songs from Shakespeare’s plays, Blake set nine of them for string quartet and tenor in the key of E major for the Chester Festival in 1987. Three years later, he reset them for mezzo-soprano in the key of D major. The nine numbers, spanning about 25 minutes, draw from As You Like It, The Tempest, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Twelfth Night, and Cymbeline.
Each number had a lyrical thrust, but Blake deftly shadowed passages with a tinge of dissonance. Using a large, expressive palette, Penn marvelously conveyed Shakespeare’s poems with terrific nuance, her voice changing from soothing to flinty to aggrieved or light-hearted to match the text.
Starting with “The Country,” which contains “Under the greenwood tree” from As You Like It, Penn warmly issued an invitation with each “come hither.” A peppy “The Wind” (“Blow, blow thou winter wind”) had a sprightly ending while “The Sea” (“Full fathom five”) reached into the depths of her register with the words “nothing of him doth fade.” In “Lament,” Penn created a piercing crescendo with the words “I am slain,” and with the funereal “Dirge for Fidele,” she concluded the song cycle with a haunting atmosphere.
The audience reflected a diverse mix of young and old as well as first-time opera attendees. By exploring a variety of contemporary works, such as The Snowy Day, Thumbprint, When the Sun Comes Out, The Central Park Five, and As One, Portland Opera has been going out on a limb artistically. Since the pandemic, the company has reduced its programming to stay within its budget ($7.6 million at the end of the 2023-2024 season). It has also sold its headquarters, the Hampton Opera Center, and entered a transition phase that may allow for more flexibility to present small-scale productions in alternative venues like the Artists Repertory Theatre. But Portland will continue its emphasis on new works that address contemporary issues.
The Juliet Letters continues at Portland Opera through Nov. 24. For tickets and information, go here.
