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GOTHAM CHAMBER OPERA: ARIADNE AND BEYOND

This season represents a change of pace for the Gotham Chamber Opera (GCO). After very entertaining stagings of Handel's Arianna in Creta, Respighi's La bella dormente nel bosco (with puppetry by Basil Twist), Britten's Albert Herring, and Rossini's Il signor Bruschino, the company embarked on a relatively experimental 2007-2008 season beginning with Astor Piazzola's dance-filled tango operita María de Buenos Aires and a kind of original staged mash-up of gypsy-related art songs entitled Scenes of Gypsy Life. In both María and Scenes, Gotham delivered musically. But for the performance of María, the dancing didn't seem to be fully realized. And for Scenes of Gypsy Life, the mix of songs didn't gel very well with the staging.

So I'm pleased to report that the musical and non-musical elements merge much better in the music-and-dance mash-up Ariadne Unhinged, Gotham's current production and the last of this season. For this work, artistic director and conductor Neal Goren indulged his apparent jones for the mythical character Ariadne (abandoned by Theseus after saving his life) by mashing up Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna (1608), Haydn's Arianna a Naxos (1789) and Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire (1912) in a collaboration with director/choreographer Karole Armitage and scenic designer Vera Lutter (among others), creating what he calls "a songdance of a woman psychologically unhinged" after her abandonment.

Performing the demanding title role last night was Emily Langford Johnson, who alternates with Brenda Patterson. Johnson outdid herself in what amounted to an Ultimate Themed Recital in which the costumed mezzo-soprano offered impassioned vocal interpretations for more than an hour while interacting with the Armitage Gone! Dance company on a fully dressed modernistic set. Artfully veering between the off-kilter expressionism of the Schoenberg and the relative clarity of the Monteverdi and the Haydn, Johnson registered a wide range of mental states in a memorable portrayal of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The deft musical accompaniment came from Daniel Swenberg on theorbo, William Hobbs on piano, Sato Moughalian and Bejamin Fingland on winds, and Christopher Collins Lee and Andrey Tchekrnazov on strings.

Ariadne Unhinged runs at the charming Harry De Jur Playhouse of the Abrons Art Center (466 Grand Street) through Sunday, May 11.

Coming up next season: Haydn's Il mondo della Luna (directed by Diane Paulus at the American Museum of Natural History) and Montsalvatge's El gato con botas/Puss in Boots (directed by Mois&eacu;s Kaufman with puppetry by Twist). Exciting!