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Birds in the Moon Intimate opera to take flight in Santa Monica PHOTO CREDITS: DEBORAH O’GRADY
By Bridgette M. Redman Austin Spangler is no stranger to opera, having worked on the world’s biggest outdoor opera festival in Austria, the Royal Opera House and the LA Opera. So, he knows what he speaks of when he says that “Birds in the Moon,” the outdoor chamber opera coming to Santa Monica Sept. 1 to 4, is one of the most groundbreaking pieces of theater and storytelling he’s ever known. “I do not know of any other opera or theater that is as exciting and as accessible, written by some incredibly, incredibly talented people here and now,” Spangler said. “This isn’t an old tale of a bygone era, this is dealing with issues now in a way that is excellently delivered.” “Birds in the Moon” is a mobile, theatrical chamber orchestra getting its West Coast premiere on Santa Monica’s Lot 27, supported by Santa Monica’s Art of Recovery grants. What sets it apart from other operas? There are only two actors and a quartet of musicians. The opera, created by Mark Grey and Julia Canosa i Serra and directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer, is performed in a shipping container, one designed and built by Chad Owens. There is a mix of sung and spoken word and it is done without a conductor.
The story
“Birds in the Moon” is a new chamber opera that marks the return of live performances for The Broad Stage since the pandemic. PAGE 12 THE ARGONAUT AUGUST 19, 2021
Maria Elena Altany said the story and libretto immediately moved her when she was asked to be the Bird Mother. “I get very intense about characters I sing,” Altany said. “This story really hits me hard as a Latinese woman, as a mother. It’s about migration and family separation and climate change and how the harm we inflict on others comes back to us.” Altany is the Bird Mother and Spangler is the Ringmaster and together they tell a story about migration and a search for a better world. It was inspired by a 17th century theory by Charles Morton that birds migrated to the moon, spent their winter there and came back to Earth where they would remain for the season. Some would come back, and others would be lost in space. In this intimate opera, a tired Bird Mother lands in a remote desert location looking for shelter and water for herself and
her child. It is there she meets up with an aging circus Ringmaster and his traveling musicians. The Ringmaster sells fake trips to the moon. The Bird Mother wants to teach her child how to get there, but she’s never been herself. Both want to escape the desert and they make a pact that leaves them forever changed. “Before COVID, Júlia Canosa i Serra and I began to think about developing a song cycle for a mezzo-soprano and a small ensemble that touched on some kind of social and political subject,” Grey said. “The Syrian refugee crisis was in the news, so we were thinking about migration as well as thinking about human trafficking, what happens at our southern border and families trying to send their children to a better place. It is a poignant subject, and we wanted to bring a subtlety to the message.” Pulitzer said they drew from magical realism and the idea of the moon as a utopia. “The spiritual component is not unlike Samuel Beckett, and the Bird Mother takes on resonances with Buddha or Jesus — a shamanistic character providing a deeper promise through her own suffering and sacrifice,” Pulitzer said.
The characters
For Altany, who has been closely following the crisis at the border, the story responds to compelling ethical questions that society struggles with. “I’ve been given the opportunity to sing and voice the mother and not make her a Virgin Mary, but a person and a creature of nature who has her own power and her own voice and makes her own decisions,” Altany said. “She makes these brutal choices and feels the results of them. I told the team it meant a lot to me and would want to do it if we did it with the utmost respect for the people who are really living this situation. Every day we were reflecting on her power and her vulnerability and her choices and really making her real and not just mythic.” Like the Bird Mother, Altany is a new mother, one who has raised her child while isolated at home because of the worldwide pandemic. She understands the intensity, stress and anxiety of a parent trying to do what is best for a child, though she says she can’t imagine what it must be like to face the kind of migrant
