Opera Review: Digging in the Dirt

On Site Opera puts on Mozart in a community garden.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gardening at night: Ashley Fox is Lady Violet in Mozart's The Secret Gardiner.
Photo by Fay Fox courtesy Unison Media.

On Site Opera has built its reputation by staging unusual works in some decidedly odd locations around New York. On Thursday night, Eric Einhorn's little opera company invaded the West Side Community Garden for the first of three performances of The Secret Gardener. A co-production with Atlanta Opera, this is an adaptation of Mozart's opera La Finta Gardeniera, written for the Munich stage when the composer was just 18. It is one of his important early opera buffa, and its rapid succession of arias and ensembles (there is no chorus) hints at the brilliance that was to come.