Cavalli goes disco in Gotham Chamber Opera's Eliogabalo

Gotham Chamber Opera's current double bill of Bohuslav Martinů's Alexandre bis and Comedy on the Bridge prove that an opera company doesn’t need to be the biggest in town to be the most innovative.

  Conducted by Neal Goren, the musicians breathed across and blew notelessly into their instruments, creating layers of sounds that grew ever more intriguing as the repetition of the word “nevermore” grew ever more sinister.

On Monday, Gotham Chamber Opera presented Daniel Catán’s opera La hija de Rappaccini (“Rappaccini’s Daughter”) in the Cherry Esplanade at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

The barely legal lives of women in polygamous marriages may seem like fertile ground for an opera. Dark Sisters, composed by Nico Muhly with a libretto by Stephen Karam, has many attractive moments in music and story, yet demonstrates the difficulties of drawing art from life.

Witty, edgy and full of Freudian insight, Anne Sexton’s libretto updates the dark and bizarre world of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Conrad Susa’s music is equally droll and contemporary. 

Gotham Chamber Opera's current double bill of Bohuslav Martinů's Alexandre bis and Comedy on the Bridge prove that an opera company doesn’t need to be the biggest in town to be the most innovative.