You’ll find Long Beach Opera’s (LBO) latest production neither on stage nor in a parking garage (like its recent Philip Glass production). Instead, LBO’s “Desert In”—produced jointly with Boston Lyric Opera (BLO)—is a spellbinding operatic mini-series streaming on OperaBox.TV, starting at $5 per episode.
Co-created by new LBO Artistic Director James Darrah, along with Pulitzer Prize winning composer Ellen Reid and acclaimed playwright and screenwriter christopher oscar peña [sic], “Desert In” weaves hypnotic visuals with haunting music to tell its imaginative story of love, loss and memory.
“James has harnessed a creative team from the worlds of opera and television,” Jennifer Rivera, LBO executive director and CEO, said in a statement describing the production. “Eight composers, eight writers and several directors along with himself […] creating something that has literally never been seen or heard before.”
Rivera describes the genre as “cinema-music-theater.” Set at the neon-signed Desert Inn—where you can check out anytime you like but you may never want to—the series captures the campy cool of Palm Springs circa 1950s and 60s, mixed with the edgy mystery of “Twin Peaks,” a strong dose of gynocentric shamanism and a sprinkling of effects recalling the original Star Trek series, all underscored by operatic music and singing.
“LBO is proud to have had a chance to co-produce this LGBTQ-positive story, featuring a very diverse group of collaborators spanning multiple disciplines,” Rivera notes. “It feels like exactly the right thing to be making at this moment.”
Unlike many operas, “Desert In” has some speech along with sung dialogue. The first 20-minute episode, “This House is Now,” opens with the young man Ion (a highly emotive Raviv Ullman) making a heartfelt video message to his missing partner Rufus (Alexander Jon Flores).
We then move to the enigmatic Desert Inn, run by two women—Cass and Sunny (sopranos Isabel Leonard and Talise Trevigne)—who croon like hummingbirds of being in love for 20 years. All singing is in English, but viewers can click on closed captioning to see lyrics.
Directed by Darrah, the episode is cinematographically stunning—focusing on character movement and detail, enhanced by slow-motion, colored lighting and other effects—and goes hand-in-hand with music by Reid, creating an air of mystery around the hotel with its center pool and one-legged caretaker Federico (Anthony Michael Lopez).
There, Ion and Rufus tenderly share a bed, Ion wearing a wedding ring. But we also see the two young men at the beach, with some tension between them, until Rufus seems to disappear in the waves.
In Episode 2, “Love is Like the Sea,” Rufus is with Ion during a party around the hotel pool but seems disturbed—asking Ion to remember something—and won’t enter the water with the rest of the revelers. We hear their thoughts through overlayed singing by baritone Edward Nelson and tenor Jesus Garcia.
The party in Episode 2 is not only carnivalesque but like a 15-minute commercial for the Desert Inn itself, phone number 5 INN LUV. A husky-voiced, 1960s-style diva lounge-singer (Justin Vivian Bond) invites the heartbroken to be reunited with past loves at the inn, “where all your dreams can come true for eternity—or until your credit runs out.”
Darrah’s images work astonishingly well with the music and voices, flowing and blending hypnotically. The Vapors, the collective name of women who hang around the hotel and pool, provide supplemental vocals that complement the intricate music.
The next six 10- to 20-minute episodes develop Ion’s story at the inn, its occupants in a seemingly perpetual hallucinatory dream-memory.
Each episode employs a different mix of writer, director and composer—including Grammy-nominated jazz pianist Vijay Iyer—whose “My Boy” is showcased in Episode 3, sung by Bond with violin, flute and jazzy percussion. David Angus directs all the music, performed by the BLO Orchestra.
“Desert In” is ultimately a beautiful meditation—both visually and musically—on love and loss. Experiencing it as a series allows viewers to come up for air periodically before diving back into the heady pool-sized concoction of emotion, filmic effect, hypnotic music and voice. Like the inn’s guests, you won’t want to leave, but you’ll have been enriched when it’s time to go.
The eight episodes of Long Beach Opera’s “Desert In” are available to stream through Sept. 6 via Boston Lyric Opera’s OperaBox.TV. Each episode can be rented for $5 each or all eight for $30.
