Opera Review: Slaughter on 12th Avenue

On Site Opera presents Blue Monday at The Cotton Club.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Before the bullets fly: Joe (Chase Taylor) and Vi (Alyson Cambridge) canoodle in the Cotton Club.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2013 On Site Opera.

The current incarnation of Harlem's fabled Cotton Club may be an echo of the establishment's heyday, when Duke Ellington led the orchestra and Fletcher Henderson reigned supreme. But on Monday night, Eric Einhorn's young opera company On Site Opera made the Harlem venue culturally relevant again with a production of Blue Monday, the 1922 one-act jazz opera by one George Gershwin.