For the past five years,
Mill City Summer Opera has
performed an opera outdoors at the
Mill City Museum Ruins Courtyard, a stunning location in which to experience opera. This year the Courtyard is under construction, so they made the best of the situation and are instead performing in a historic building across the river, an event space called the
Machine Shop. For this small indoor location they've chosen a 20th Century, three-person, small orchestra piece, in contrast to their usual classical, large cast, full orchestra pieces. The opera is perfectly suited to the space (and reminds me a bit of
what Skylark Opera has been doing lately), and the experience, while different than outdoor opera in the Ruins Courtyard, is just as thrilling. On a hot and steamy summer night,
Maria de Buenos Aires is a hot and steamy little opera that is positively hypnotic in its poetry of sound and movement.
