Well, it was fookin’ amazing.

Here’s a time-lapse video showing the setup, show, and strike along with a snippet of the work.

I emailed about it:

And it was … transcendent. Orpheus is playing a clarinet floating in a Sabot the middle of a darkened pool, illuminated by a single warm spot, with the deep blue reflections of the statue/props on the other bleachers reflecting in the water around him, and as his boat moves in random arcs over the water, the music floats as well, and suddenly we were all drifting with him in longing.

The singer – Elizabeth Futral – was beautiful and had an amazing coloratura voice; slightly overmiked to make up for the cavernous space, her singing was passionate, funny, warm … and we all fell in love with her.

When it was over and the last light went down, I turned to Hunter and just said “Fuccccck….”

We got great coverage in the local press; here’s the LA Times:

NOBODY really knew if it was going to work, says Long Beach Opera artistic director Andreas Mitisek, until they actually got their Orpheus into the boat.

Only a couple of hours before, the Belmont Plaza municipal pool was clogged with frolicking swimmers, their cacophony ricocheting around its ample Greek Modern-style hall. But evenings here have recently been put to an unexpectedly sonorous use — an unorthodox staging of the new opera “Orpheus & Euridice.” And while Mitisek had been diligently envisioning it for some time, fingers remained tightly crossed until the night they first set Todd Palmer, LBO’s titular Greek, adrift.

“The first image Andreas created was of a [divine emissary] pushing Orpheus’ boat out into the water,” says composer Ricky Ian Gordon, who wrote the opera’s music and text. “Within moments, it became a hallowed space. It wasn’t a piece of music beginning or a piece of theater opening, it was a reflection of the role of mythology in our lives.”

…if you’re interested, it’s playing for two more days. Get your tickets soon; we sold out last night!

More information at the LBO site.