Opera Review: A Beard Too Far

Gotham Chamber Opera opens with a double bill by Martinů.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Me and my shadow: Jarett Ott (left) and Joseph Beutel (right) flank Jenna Seladie in Alexandre Bis.
Photo © 2014 Richard Termine, courtesy Gotham Chamber Opera.

On Tuesday night, the maverick Gotham Chamber Opera opened its fourteenth season at the Gerald Lynch Theater. The program: a pair of operas by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. Alexandre Bis (1937) and Comedy on the Bridge (1935) were written in those turbulent years before Nazi Germany marched troops into the relatively new nation of Czechoslovakia, an event which would force Martinů himself to escape, first to France and then to America in 1941. These one-act comedies burn with a nervous comic energy, reacting to the insanity of the 1930s with bursts of absurd humor. Under Neal Goren's baton, Martinů's excellent qualities as a composer came to the fore, giving New Yorkers a new appreciation of this composer.