For a sector of the opera-loving public, a tradition is taking shape. Around Halloween, the girls, gays and theys line up in their finest outside Judson Memorial Church for Heartbeat’s Drag Opera Extravaganza.
This year was the 11th edition of the seasonal event, which takes a theme and riffs on it in an off-color pastiche of opera and pop culture. Past titles include “Messy Messiah,” “Slaylem” (a spoof on Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible”), “Orgy and Bess.” This year’s is “Queeney Todd.” (The show runs through Oct. 31.)
Each year’s offering features an original script, usually the brainchild of Heartbeat’s frequent librettist Peregrine Teng Heard and the company’s artistic director, Jacob Ashworth. (Kemar Jewel and Garrett Bell also contributed this year.) The bawdy gags are held together by Dan Schlosberg’s inventive arrangements and the team’s omnivorous repertoire choices.
The setting speaks to both Heartbeat’s audience and to the productions’ themes. Judson Memorial Church has an honored place in New York’s L.G.B.T.Q. history and in avant-garde art.
For “Queeney Todd,” the bar sells themed cocktails with names like “Wench 75.” V.I.P. tables near the stage held drinks, folding fans and, eventually, actors, who leap onto them to sing while audience members take pictures. The four-person orchestra, including both Ashworth and Schlosberg, is in Victorian drag with smeared lipstick, corsets and sausage-curled wigs.
Audience members laughed, clapped and interjected throughout with cries of “Yaaass” or “Mm-hm!” Some in the crowd wore elaborate costumes of their own, but many were in jeans. The feeling is less opera house, more cabaret bar, with audiences lingering to chat and imbibe after the show.
This year’s production starts as a spoof of Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd,” but quickly turns into a feverish mash-up of opera tropes, beloved arias, musical theater callbacks, RuPaul’s Drag Race references, pop music and slapstick comedy.
The hero is now called Queeney Todd, played with aplomb by Nathaniel Sullivan, who returns to London to get revenge on callous ex-lovers before he succumbs to “twink death.” He reunites with a lewdly renamed version of Mrs. Lovett (Matt Dengler, a show-stealer even before he actually steals the show), who runs a failing sex shop. He meets the lascivious Rosina, portrayed by a fearless Eliza Bonet, and encounters various errant men, all voiced by Imara Miles, a mezzo-soprano making a bravado drag-king turn.
After an accidental castration turns deadly, Queeney and friends see a potential for monetization, until another singing barber, Figaro, comes to upend their murderous schemes; Jonathan Burke, winsome in a non-singing role, introduces this Figaro with a striptease and a lip sync.
Schlosberg includes some opera chestnuts: Carmen’s Habanera, Figaro’s “Largo al factotum” and a montage of “toxic tenor” arias from “Madama Butterfly,” “Carmen” and “Rigoletto.” There are also a few deep cuts, including an aria from Offenbach’s “The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein.”
There are also needle drops from Ginuwine, Disney, “Swan Lake” and an expected gag pairing Shocking Blue’s “Venus” with an oversized pink disposable razor. Later on, Angela Lansbury — not the real one, but Dengler in multilayered drag — hijacks the narrative, making everything about herself.
In-jokes for opera fans abound, whether in musical form or satires of the operatic canon. With a change of lyrics Handel’s aria “See, the raging flames arise” turns into “See, the raging gays arise,” sung by Queeney as he shaves his whole body for an upcoming rendezvous. A set of projected Grindr conversations lampooning some of opera’s worst male behavior got hearty laughs.
And the jokes landed whether the audience members knew the operas or not. The broad range of references provides multiple access points for newcomers and positions opera within a more expansive media landscape.
As an entry to opera, the Drag Opera Extravaganzas might be less-than representative. But they attract new listeners to Heartbeat. When Ashworth asked the crowd if this was their first time at a drag show, no hands were raised. When he asked whether this was their first time at an opera, at least a dozen hands flew up. One Heartbeat first-timer ended the night sipping a cocktail and saying: “I’d definitely go see their other shows.”
Heartbeat doesn’t pause to explain the insider stuff. Nor does it bother with translations for the arias, trusting that audiences will get the gist. If not, they can enjoy the spectacle and the singing, which is especially strong given that some singers are outside their usual vocal ranges and wearing seven-inch heels.
Heartbeat’s jokes are so smart, they’re stupid, and so stupid that they boomerang back to smart. All evince confidence and a delight in opera’s inherent silliness and barely concealed queerness. As with all good sendups, Heartbeat knows of which it speaks and loves it. The Drag Opera Extravaganza may be becoming a tradition, but traditional it is not.
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