Pondering ‘Carmen’ with folk-rock remix

Poi Dog helps expose opera to young ears

Chicago Sun-Times
By Bryant Manning
Published June 6, 2007
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Music Review

Sometimes all it takes is just a little contemporary thinking to expose “old” music to young listeners. The video game “Resident Evil” gave millions of kids in the 1990s their first taste of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” and back in the ’60s, teenagers grooved to Procol Harum’s “A White Shade of Pale,” which was based on Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D Major.

Opera is another beast, but the Chicago Sinfonietta — which is closing out its 20th anniversary season — and local folk-rock act Poi Dog Pondering have collaborated on “Carmen Remixed,” a present-day take on Bizet’s “Carmen,” which premiered Monday night at Symphony Center. Two years ago, Poi Dog — launched in 1986 by Hawaiian-born singer-guitarist Frank Orrall — conspired with the Sinfonietta on a critically successful remix of themes from Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony.

For this “hand-made mini-opera in 10 acts,” as it was billed, band members acted out the story. Videos designed by Orrall to illustrate the opera’s themes were projected on a giant screen behind the stage. Vocalist Charlotte Wortham gave a sassy portrayal of Carmen as a striking counterpart to Orrall’s own bumbling Don Jose. This “remix” may have played up the opera’s Spanish folk music themes in a hokey fashion at times, but it brought the audience in and kept them there.
Andre Raphel Smith, music director of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, stepped in Monday for ailing Sinfonietta founder Paul Freeman on the podium and brought band and orchestra together harmoniously. Meanwhile, Dag Juhlin’s picking on an electric Fender Stratocaster never sounded out of place among some 70 classical musicians. A festive wedding ceremony concluded the revised opera, while flower girls rushed down the aisles of Orchestra Hall’s main floor.

Poi Dog also jammed out to five of its original songs, two of which were accompanied by the Sinfonietta. An accordion, a trumpet and Susan Voelz’s folksy violin best characterized the group’s kaleidoscopic and uplifting sound.

The Sinfonietta had its turn, too, and the evening’s first half was a brief but lovely encounter of selections from the original “Carmen” opera and ballet suites. The orchestra’s delicate sonorities in the ballet music primed the bombastic “Les Toreadors” and “Danse boheme” that were to follow. Bizet’s posthumously published “L’Arlesienne” Suite No. 2 was delivered with explosive dynamics and absolute clarity in the horn section.