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Portland Opera has, more than most other arts organizations in the city, put itself in the ideal position to weather these uncertain times. It’s reduced its 60th anniversary season schedule down to just three major events with an emphasis on more modern work like next March’s production of a new opera based on The Shining.
More daring was the choice of The Juliet Letters to kick off its sixth decade. Adapted from an album of the same name written and recorded by rocker Elvis Costello and chamber ensemble The Brodsky Quartet, the stage adaptation premiered in 2017 in Kansas City with director Fenlon Lamb leading the charge. She has followed the piece to Portland, which helped give this new production a sturdy backbone even on opening night this past Friday.
The performance space at Artists Repertory Theatre was filled with paper—hanging from the ceiling, in big rolls behind the string quartet, and carried by the four vocalists. Those singers, too, played around with the paper, tearing and unfurling the rolls and plucking pages from the air for dramatic effect.
The emphasis, though, remained on the words. Like every Costello work, they were alternately cutting and soothing, hilarious and devastating. The kind of decadent treat that the four singers attacked hungrily in their performances. Baritone Matthew Maisano seemed to get the best of the material, making hay of the goofy “This Offer Is Unrepeatable” and adding poignancy to his section of “Jacksons, Monk and Rowe.” And while soprano Ginaia Black had perhaps the least to do over the course of the evening, it was her voice that left the deepest impression as she took on the truly devastating song “Why?” with a tenderness that even the ever-reliable Costello could never attain.