Opera for the L Train Crowd
A tech company in Soho is not the kind of place you’d expect to hear opera. On a Saturday afternoon, Laine Rettmer is directing a rehearsal of Lucrezia Borgia for the company LoftOpera. Men are twirling around a woman that plays a waitress – knocking over cups and beer bottles.
Joel Herold had never performed with a company like this. “Opera singers are known for the park and bark,” he said, “You just stand there and sing.”
LoftOpera was founded by Dan Ellis-Ferris and Brianna Maury. They want to make opera feel young and cool – a cheap but exhilarating date night. Their typical audience has tattoos and piercings, not pearls and tuxedos, and the operas are staged in gritty industrial lofts. Some opera fans have trouble adjusting to their expectations at these productions: The acoustics aren't great, the music is stripped down and the singers are young.
“We’ve had people just simply comment in reviews about the fact that well if she was singing that in a bigger house you wouldn’t be able to hear her, so lucky for her,” said Laine Rettner.
None of that bothers Joel Herold. “Opera doesn’t have to be a museum art,” he said. “Opera is the human experience through singing.”
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