Five Fun Operas/Song Cycles You Can Listen To For Free For The Halloween Season:
Probably THE definitive Halloween musical/opera/experience, if you listen to anything on this list listen to this. It’s just so great and fantastic in ways that are hard to adequately explain while doing the show justice. At its heart the show tells the story of a woman who seeks revenge on her sister and her lover with a curse. This sounds pretty straightforward, but the story is mind bending, weaving its way through a complicated timeline told out of sequence that involves a bear, the stars, Edgar Allan Poe’s The House of Usher, a woman being hit by a train, Scheherazade, and ghosts (or does it?). It’s entirely performed by four talented musicians who composed the music AND accompany themselves on the instruments. The music is like nothing you’ve ever heard before, it’s fascinating and extremely spooky.
This is a song cycle that tells the story of Medea, mythological lover of Jason who murders her own sons and her husband’s new wife after he leaves her. The show is told in songs from Medea’s perspective, from the beginning of her narrative when she’s locked away in a palace to when she sets herself adrift on the sea in an old boat forever. While it may not seem like a Halloween show, Medea is more or less one of the earliest and best developed examples of a witch in fiction, and there’s a turning point in the show where Medea summons a chariot to fly her through the sky to murder the king, and there’s no turning back from how dark the show really gets after that. It’s got some fun rock tunes and composer/singer Kate Kilbane gives a great performance.
Pilgrim: Song Cycle for a Creation Myth:
A more upbeat show, this song cycle uses a sort of folksy-electronic style to tell the story of a girl who’s pulled by a magician into the magical Kingdom Of The Heart, where she develops magical powers and leads an army of light soldiers back to Earth to “transform everything that is still living in darkness.” This show is for people who enjoy light takes on traditionally dark supernatural elements, because there’s a super fun sequence where she befriends and dances with a tribe of skeletons who live beneath the ground and she befriends Death.
Adventures from the Ocean of the Dead:
A nautical tale, this rock opera tells the story of a man who returns to a grieving widow and her family with a fantastic story of the life and death of her husband after he embarked on the sea. It involves tea smugglers, pirates, the Empress of the Sea, the Monkey King and his wives, the Ocean of the Dead, a mermaid, and of course, a treasure. It seems to be the composer’s first attempt to write a musical, and she creates some solid melodies to accompany some fantastic imagery. If nothing else, at least check out the great paper art she made to accompany each track from the show.
The Dolls of New Albion - A Steampunk Opera
The New Albion Radio Hour - A Dieselpunk Opera
The New Albion Guide to Analogue Consciousness - An Atompunk Opera
Okay this one is actually like three shows but they kind of form a narrative about a fictional city called New Albion. The show begins with a mad scientist woman discovering how to raise the dead by binding them into metal bodies called “Dolls.” This inadvertently sets off a chain of events that leads to the eventual downfall of the city, the rise and fall of the Voodoopunk cult, the creation of a race of cyber men, and an invasion of Heaven itself. Naturally, this is all told through an opera in three parts, each entry focusing on a different portion of the city’s history, each told by a different author who puts their own distinct spin on the tale. It’s not perfect, but the music is frequently quite good and the story itself is very inventive.
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