Musicians have been rockin’ the classics for decades, but now New York City’s innovative East Village Opera Company have put an especially distinctive new twist on the classical canon. Imagine a classical ensemble taking the tongue from the cheek of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” or ― as on the collection’s delightfully dizzy opener “The Ride” ― channeling Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” with the muses of Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham.
On their new, aptly titled Olde School album for Decca, East Village Opera Company founders Peter Kiesewalter and Tyley Ross again lead their extended ensemble in a gleeful reconstruction of classical pieces and operatic arias from Bach, Mozart, Handel, Verdi, Puccini and a few of the classical world’s other Usual Suspects, imbuing them with an eclectic mix of rock ’n’ soul influences drawn largely from the pop world’s own ’60s/’70s “classic” era.
“The pomposity of opera lends itself to the majesty of rock and vice-versa,” Kiesewalter said. “We embrace it, and we don’t try to water it down. Instead, we imagine what these composers would have used had they been alive today. I know that Freddie Mercury and George Frederic Handel alike would be using Pro Tools and computers were they alive.” Quite possibly ― though it’s harder to envision Handel flouncing on-stage in a codpiece and leather biker’s cap.
East Village Opera Company’s roots lie in the Canadian feature film production where Kiesewalter and vocalist/actor Tyley Ross met eight years ago, a mob comedy whose director asked the Ontario-born musicians to let him “hear Italian opera in a way that hasn’t been done before.” That notion inspired them to further joint musical explorations, culminating in the formal founding of EVOC and an indie release (La Donna), culled from their Toronto soundtrack collaboration that featured such notable contributors as Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid and Blue Man Group director Byron Estep. A series of well-received 2004 shows at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan’s New York Public Theater helped secure them a deal with Decca/Universal, who released their self-titled big label bow in 2005.
Though formally trained as a clarinetist well-versed in the classical canon, Kiesewalter freely admitted that he’s “never been an opera fan. Yet the more I listened to opera, the more the melodies cried out. These arias, in essence, are pop tunes that have stood the test of time.” Indeed, it’s good to remember that classical music was the popular music of its day.
But while Kiesewalter also confided that East Village Opera Company’s early forays into genre-melding were often predictable choices ― “opera’s greatest hits,” he says ― culled from Carmen, Madame Butterfly and La Boheme, the outfit’s ambitions have grown along with its roster. Vocalist AnnMarie Milazzo gives an expressive new pop dimension to the ensemble, which now essentially comprises a rock group with two vocalists and a string quartet. She’s key to Olde School’s inviting highlight, “Help Me (Jove in Pity),” a production showcase rooted in Handel’s Semele that suggests a lost Abbey Road-era Beatles track completed by Queen.
Kiesewalter argues it’s a sense of instant familiarity with their operatic building blocks ― even in non-classical fans ― that serves as the foundation for EVOC’s often playful reinventions: “When we launch into a tune that almost everybody recognizes from some source ― whether they have heard it performed in an opera house or heard it in a Bugs Bunny cartoon or maybe a commercial ― the music is provided an immediate context. By knowing the original, they can tell right away what it is we’re doing. I mean, this music is part of our collective DNA. It’s going to be around 100 years from now, the same way Beatles tunes and Cole Porter tunes will be.”
