Jerry Springer The Opera: WTFFF?

Richard Thomas’s

Jerry Springer the Opera

3Below Theater

February 24, 2024

Seeing Jerry Springer the Opera is something like being dumped into a latrine and coming back out with a handful of diamonds. You’ll be richer for the experience, but you will need to do some laundry. And take a shower, you stinky fuck!

Sorry. It’s just that this show is filthy, and it really revs up the potty mouth. Thomas makes it worse by taking the worst of these swear-bombs and turning them into little neoclassical ditties. My favorite is “What the fucking fucking fuck!” (You see, on the real Jerry they would bleep that out.)

Okay. So let’s attempt a plot summary. Mr. Springer - Ric Iverson, who does a dead-on impression - leads us through a typical episode, beginning with blue-collar dude Dwight (Joseph Meyers), who can’t seem to resist putting his dick into anything that moves. He informs his fiancee Peaches that he’s been having an affair with her best friend, Big Black and Beautiful Zandra, and then informs both of them that he’s also been boinking Tremont, a “chick with a dick.” (Thankfully, the confessional stops short of farm animals.)

Photo by Dave Lepori.

Next we have Montel (Jared Lee), who says he wants his girlfriend to treat him like a baby. Like a real baby. And then disposes of his tear-away suit, revealing a ripped bod and a diaper. (Lee also has a great tenor voice. I sorta hate him.)

And so it goes in Springer-land, until Jerry is shot by his warmup guy who’s really Satan, which should surprise no one. He wakes up in the underworld, where he’s ordered to host an episode of Jerry Springer in Hell. Either that, or face a punishment that includes barbed wire up the ass (“Barbed wire up the ass! Barbed wire up the ass!”)

The biblical tropes that follow are a little too predictable, but the Springer element certainly puts them in a new light. When Satan (Stephen Guggenheim) faces off against Jesus (super-bod Lee again), he says, “I have two words for you!” And then spends three or four minutes crafting a Mozartean fugue that begins with the syllable fuh and doesn’t end for a lo-o-ong time. Jesus, meanwhile, tries to dispel the devil’s anger with counterpoint. The sheer breath control from these two is dazzling.

The true opera fan, at this point, may be asking, But is this really opera? To which I would say, well, kinda. We’ve got genuine Handelian runs, Verdian choruses, Wagnerian anthems - sometimes just musical theater sung with operatic technique. One thing’s for sure: 3Below’s unique roster of hybrid opera/musical theater singers are perfectly suited to this weird fucking show.

It’s fun to see Joseph Meyers play horndog Dwight (and later, Elvis as God), because we also get to enjoy his gorgeous lyric tenor. Krista Wigle brings her big opera house soprano to Baby Jane, who does play-by-play on the second act, and Nina Edwards brings a similar bearing to Mary, Mother of God. B. Noel Thomas creates a stir with her baritone-to–soprano range, particularly as the Valkyrie, who repeatedly tries and a fails to act as Jerry’s conscience. Operatic veteran Jesse Merlin has a similar effect as chick-with-dick Tremont, suddenly unleashing a basso profundo. The cognitive dissonance is crazy.

It could be that a good healthy dose of cognitive dissonance is precisely what we need right now, as the whole fucking country goes off its rocker. Thomas and lyricist Stewart Lee premiered this show in London in 2003, and probably didn’t anticipate that the United States would eventually become the Jerry Springer Show writ large.

Oh, and those diamonds. After bathing in all this raunch, the effect of a surprising moment of sweetness is particularly sharp. Lyric soprano Lori Schulman (the unfortunate girlfriend of Diaper Man) expresses her simple desires in “I Wanna Sing Something Beautiful,” followed by hoochie mama Lynda Divito’s similar “I Just Wanna Dance,” a musical theater yearning song along the lines of “What I Did For Love.”  Fred Isozaki gives an oddly effective stage aside as security man Steve Wilkos. Much later, a KKK song-and-dance number seems intentionally similar to Springtime For Hitler.

And yes, there’s even some payback for all of Jerry’s crap-meistering. He’s introduced to hell by a litany of deaths cause by his guests’ appearances on his show. Baby Jane is walking around with a plumber’s wrench in her skull. Toward the end, he’s left to talk his way out, repeatedly slipping and falling on a ladder with each failed attempt.

As for my Final Note, I can’t really tell you what this show is about. That may be the point. I will tell you that opera singers singing about lesbians, drag queens and shitting in one’s diapers is one of the funniest things that you will ever witness. And if you should find the show offensive, I have two words for you: Fuh-uh-uh-UH, Fuh-uh-uh-uh-uh… Well, you get the point.

Through March 17, 3Below Theater, 288 S. Second Street, San Jose. 3BelowTheaters.com, 408/404-7711. $25-$65. 

Michael J. Vaughn is a 40-year opera critic and author of the novel Punks for the Opera, available at Amazon.com.

A Riveting Rigoletto

Photo by David Allen

 

Opera San Jose

February 17, 2024

The opening scene of Opera San Jose’s Rigoletto is so intense and perfect that it may lift you right out of your seat. It has a lot to do with Steven C. Kemp’s uber-masculine set, black pillars with blood-red draperies. And Mr. Howard Tsvi Kaplan’s costumes, dark with metallic inlays, which make the Mantuan court look like some badass medieval street gang.

It has mostly to do with the jester Rigoletto and his boss-enemy, the Duke. Eugene Brancoveanu brings to the former a servile desperation with an underlying air of danger, like a veteran with PTSD issues. Instead of the traditional hump, he sports a painful-looking scar across his temple (Christina Martin, makeup design), revealed later to be a kind of brand maintained by the Duke to keep him under his thumb. Brancoveanu has a magnificent baritone, equipped for rough postures, but capable of drawing back for the jester’s more frail moments. He also deploys fine touches, like the butterfly tra-las he lets fly during the court dance, or the odd commedia poses he strikes at key moments.

Our Duke is Edward Graves, an imposing presence with a delicious lirico spinto tenor. On the Duke of Mantua Continuum, from Don Giovanni playboy to pure evil Caligula, Graves errs on the side of “I will do whatever I want and you will like it.” This adds extra force when he very intentionally humiliates the Count Ceprano by making free use of his wife, then blithely dismisses the stentorian threats of Monterone (bass-baritone Philip Skinner) as the poor man demands the whereabouts of his daughter. When Monterone subsequenty lays down a curse, Brancoveanu nearly melts into the stage with anxiety. Graves, meanwhile, finds his vocal apex later with “Bella figlia dell’amore,” with which he somewhat unnecessarily seduces the assassin’s sister Maddalena.

The machismo continues with the assassin Sparafucile, who accosts Rigoletto outside his home and offers his services. Bass-baritone Ashraf Sewailam’s tone is like blackened barbecue ribs, and his stage presence is fringed with menace.

Rigoletto arrives home to his daughter and reconfirms his security demands to housemaid Giovanna in the fetching cabaletta “Ah! Veglia, o donna.” This and his later pleas to the courtiers are the most heartbreaking moments in Brancoveanu’s performance.

Melissa Sondhi plays Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda with a sweet, light tone. The lightness is no sin - Gildas tend to go this way - but Sondhi’s voice pales next to her powerhouse males, and the top notes of “Caro nome” are hesitant and pinched. The lack of power is also an issue for mezzo Melisa Bonetti Luna as Maddalena. She does, however, capture the twisted sister’s sexiness, and her misguided affections for the Duke.

Stage director Dan Wallace makes some intriguing choices. To Rigoletto’s scar he adds a case of syphilis for the Duke, who is shown having his pox bandaged by a servant. Wallace also works with fight choreographer Dave Maier to construct a final killing that is brutal and chaotic. In a sense, Maddalena’s multiple dagger-thrusts are much more real and upsetting than the traditional approach, in which the disguised Gilda accepts Sparafucile’s knife like someone embracing a lover.

Under conductor Jorge Parodi, the orchestra plays beautifully, beginning with that deceptively simple, lushly powerful overture. It’s almost like a content warning on a movie: This will NOT be a happy story.

Through March 3 at the California Theatre, 345 S. 1st St. $55-$195. operasj.org, 408/437-4450.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 40-year opera critic and the author of the novel Punks for the Opera, available at Amazon.