CFA’s Fall Fringe Festival Opens with Sold Out Siren Song

“Opera doesn’t belong to a particular era, and things that are happening right now can be operatic.” – Jonathan Dove

The Boston University College of Fine Arts opened its 17th Fall Fringe Festival this weekend at BU Theatre (a division of Huntington Theatre) with, according to the box office, four sold out performances of Siren Song—a modern one-act opera sung in English that probes the themes of love and deceit.

Photo by Carol Chin
Poster for the Fringe Festival. | Photo by Carol Chin

Siren Song serves as part of CFA’s mission to produce through the Festival—a collaboration among CFA’s schools of music and theatre and the Opera Institute—“new or rarely significant works in the opera and theatre repertoire, bringing performers and audiences together in unique theatrical settings,” according to CFA’s website.

“By allowing ourselves to move beyond the status quo, we invite the rebirth of the modern operatic artist both in training, and performance. It is precisely this conviction that allows our work to reside inside Boston University, a leading research institution, and its College of Fine Arts, which celebrates the possibilities of interdisciplinary investigation. This is the right time for affirming this commitment to excellence and discovery,” artistic directors William Lumpkin and Jim Petosa included in the festival’s playbill.

The opera tells the story of Davey, a young navy sailor who receives letters from, and falls in love with (via the letters), a supposed woman named Diana. Diana, however, he learns, is actually Jonathan—a con artist who manipulates Davey and steals his money.

Siren Song is one of three performances in the festival; the others to follow include Nico Muhly’s two-act opera Dark Sisters (October 11-13), and Sam Shephard’s one-act play Back Bog Beast Bait (October 22-27).

“I think it’s important to do modern operas—that’s a lot of what they do with the Fringe Festivals. They do smaller, lesser known operas, and they do a lot of modern things. I think the reason this [opera] is so simply understood is the age that we’re in—the whole online thing—it’s like ‘catfishing.’ It’s very much within that vein, so I think it was very easy to follow and understand. It almost made it a little more unnerving because, in the modern age, something like this could happen,” said Abigail Smith (CFA School of Music ’14).

Siren Song includes a cast of six, and is composed by Jonathan Dove, written by Nick Dear, who based his work off of a 1992 novel of the same name by Gordon Honeycombe, conducted by William Lumpkin, and directed by Jim Petosa.

“The cast started working on it on their own [over the summer], but it’s a terribly difficult piece, so they really needed to work with me. So when they got here, I worked with each person individually, just on the music. Then we started combining them together, and once the music was down, we started staging. We did two solid days of just discussion about the characters, reading through and singing through the piece and talking about the relationships between the characters…So there are many, many, many layers [of preparation],” said the principle coach of the show, Matthew Larson.

The black box in particular brought about an intimacy and interaction between the performers, and audience, that cannot be contested, it seems.

“It’s always just an amazing place to perform. Everyone can hear everything, so you don’t have to worry about branching out, you can just go ahead and act and do whatever you need to do and tell the story and tell it as well as possible. I’m so happy that it was sold out—all the performances—it makes me very happy,” said Benjamin Taylor, a second year grad student in CFA, who played Jonathan.

“The energy was incredible. It really helps to fuel your acting when you have people giving you feedback. You don’t have to worry about getting your sound out, getting your emotions out, you can really just focus on the little details, and that, as an actor and as a singer, is such a gift, really, and a rewarding experience,” said Katherine Peck, also a second year grad student in CFA, who played Diana.

“This was one of the best and most rewarding shows I’ve ever worked on. Everyone involved at every level was so completely committed to the material. The material really touched all of us from the very beginning. And because of that level of dedication, it was absolutely delightful to work on. Nobody minded being here until 11 o’clock at night, nobody cared about being called and not used…It was a very special production. I wish we had more performances, because it was sold out every night, and that’s unusual for the Fringe,” Larson said.

“I thought it was incredible. It was a very intimate, very dark thriller and I thought it was really captivating, and it was really slow in its delivery and it really grabbed you in. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I loved it,” Smith said.

About Megan Kirk

Megan Kirk ( CGS '14, COM '16) is a writer at The Quad, pursuing a major in Journalism and a minor in Political Science. She hails from a suburb outside of NYC, and is interested in politics, fashion and art. She loves exploring all that the city of Boston has to offer, and running, too.

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