Anya17

Last weekend I saw the last of 3 performances by Opera Parallèle of Anya17, a British opera written explicitly to raise awareness of human sex trafficking. The dismayingly bald libretto by Ben Kaye tells the story of a young woman, presumably from Eastern Europe, who is smuggled into a western country where she is brutalized & forced into prostitution. Adam Gorb's music, for a band of about a dozen musicians, ranges from ugly modernism to seductive jazz. The uniformly fine cast all give admirably sincere & committed performances, but I wish the opera itself had been rewarding.

Soprano Anna Noggle is a controlled & solid singer & actor in the title role. Mezzo Catherine Cook is persuasive as a strutting, self-justifying trafficker. I enjoyed hearing Laura Krumm's rich mezzo voice in a part she sings mostly from the floor. I liked baritone Victor Benedetti's warm sound & smooth singing, even though his character mostly beats up women onstage. Soprano Shawnette Sulker convincingly conveys youth & innocence, & tenor Andres Ramirez sings lightly & pleasingly in a very odd role as a kindhearted john, bringing flowers for his favorite prostitute.

The production's visual design works well. The stage is a dingy, cage-like environment, with vivid but discrete video projections enhancing the action. 2 dancers, in glittery make-up, act as stage hands. The orchestra was onstage & partly behind a fence. Nicole Paiement's conducting was tight. The performance ran an intermissionless 90 minutes, & the audience seemed as serious about the material as the performers.

§ Anya17 (2012)
Music by Adam Gorb and libretto by Ben Kaye

Opera Parallèle
Nicole Paiement, conductor
Brian Staufenbiel, director

Catherine Cook: Carole/Natalia
Anna Noggle: Anya
Andres Ramirez: Uri/Gabriel
Victor Benedetti: Viktor
Shawnette Sulker: Mila
Laura Krumm: Elena

Dancers
Jane Das, Quilet Rarang

Marines’ Memorial Theater
4 p.m. June 22, 2014