Review: MN Opera’s ‘Trouble in Tahiti’ and ‘Service Provider’ explore marital bliss gone wrong

One of opera’s chief selling points is its bigness. Big voices expressing big emotions about life-and-death matters on big, elaborate sets.

But the art form also lends itself well to intimacy. That’s among the reasons Minnesota Opera purchased a 224-seat theater a few doors down from its headquarters in Minneapolis’ North Loop neighborhood: to offer chamber operas ideally experienced at close range.

Two share a bill this month, each one-act examining a relationship beset by conflicts common to its time. With 1952′s “Trouble in Tahiti,” Leonard Bernstein (acting as both composer and librettist) examines the emptiness hiding inside the freshly revised “American Dream” myth that emerged after World War II. Far lighter in tone is Christopher Weiss and John de los Santos’ comedy, “Service Provider,” in which social media obsession might prove toxic to a marriage.

Under the crisp, detailed direction of Kyle Weiler, the two short operas receive expert interpretations. Written 60-plus years apart, the two pieces nevertheless prove a fine fit, conductor Joseph Li leading an onstage orchestra (big for Bernstein, small for Weiss) that gives acute attention to the unique challenges of each score.

In Bernstein’s case, that means finding the sweet spot between mid-20th-century modernism and the swinging unpredictability of jazz, and this “Trouble in Tahiti” succeeds there. A trio of vocalists acts as something of a Greek chorus, painting sunny scenes of suburbia with syncopated rhythms and herky-jerky time changes.

They lead us to the “little white house” where Sam and Dinah drift between tense duets and internal monologues in which they mourn their marriage’s decline and express their own desperate desire for connection. A sad beauty emerges in mezzo-soprano Zoie Reams’ moving performance as Dinah, her arias offering a preview of the aching sorrow that would suffuse Bernstein’s ballads in “West Side Story” and the rapid-fire storytelling style of his “Candide.”

Powerfully voiced baritone Charles H. Eaton counters with a disarmingly believable take on Sam, a man clinging tenaciously to American popular culture’s standards of success, this boastful “winner” haunted by his failures as a husband and father. It’s another outstanding performance from the astonishingly chameleonic Eaton. You’d never recognize him as having been the devilish Freddie Mercury-channeling villain in last season’s production of Handel’s “Rinaldo.”

Reams is also a standout in “Service Provider,” although she’s singing the role of a considerably less sympathetic character: a self-absorbed woman constantly interrupting her anniversary dinner to text and post.

The “jazz trio” from the earlier opera splits up to portray her dining companions. Baritone Jeremiah Sanders brings edgy exasperation to her husband, whose mistress (soprano Keely Futterer) has arrived at the restaurant to stir things up. Stealing the scene is tenor Efraín Corralejo as a waiter trying to keep peace and explain tonight’s specials in a suite of three arias, each a parody of a classic operatic style from composer Weiss’ witty pen.

Benjamin Olsen’s versatile sliding set uses the Luminary space well. Alas, the same decline in corporate giving to the arts that’s shrinking local music and dance programming is keeping these intimate operatic ventures off next season’s Minnesota Opera schedule. So seize the day and experience this excellent example of what small-scale opera can do.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tue., Thu. and Sat., 2 p.m. Sun.; through March 23

Where: Luminary Arts Center, 700 1st St. N., Mpls.

Tickets: $75-$85, available at 612-333-6669 or mnopera.org

Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities classical music writer. Reach him at wordhub@yahoo.com.