Composer Rene Orth's “10 Days in a Madhouse,” based on the 1887 book by trailblazing reporter Nellie Bly, opened Opera Philadelphia's O23 Festival.
“I have a lot to say about women’s rights being taken away and how women are treated,” director Joanna Settle explained. “If Britney Spears can be put in a conservatorship performing nine shows a week in Vegas at the highest level, it’s unbelievable that someone that legibly competent can lose her freedom. So, it’s not such an old issue, which is why we all respond to the story.”
Librettist Hannah Moscovitch was paired with Orth in what Moscovitch calls a “blind date” by Opera Philadelphia general director David Devan after her work on “Sky on Swings,” Lembit Beecher’s 2018 chamber opera about Alzheimer’s disease. Moscovitch’s libretto reverses Bly’s story, starting on day 10 and working toward Bly’s admittance, an inverted chronology evoking Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal.”
“I’m not turning down Adinas and Susannas left and right to choose this work, but I’m very, very happy that this work did choose me,” she said, referring to famous Mozart and Donizetti roles. “I personally find playing these more canonic characters to be something of a straitjacket, because I think not only the listener — but also I, myself — have a sort of ideal sound in mind and ideal performance, whether it’s Judith Blegen or Kathleen Battle.
Candillari conducted a reworked version of Orth’s “Empty the House” in 2019. For this production in the 296-seat Wilma Theater, the orchestra is on a platform above the set, and uplights by Andrew Leiberman create an eerie atmosphere. About a half-dozen monitors are placed around the stage.
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