Andrew Stenson in Recital at Seattle Opera

Like K-dramas, opera recitals have shot from “not a thing I watch” to “primary form of entertainment” for me during the pandemic. I watched everything Seattle Opera put out last fall. I think I might have missed some things around the holidays, but I’m back on the opera recital bandwagon with Andrew Stenson’s late January performance.

Viewing Experience

During the fall season a sort of ritual developed around how I watch the recitals. My husband and I would get drinks and head to the basement where we’d connect a tablet to the tv so we could watch on a big screen with good speakers. Sometimes the kids would come and go, or sit with us while scrolling on their phones. Other times they didn’t come downstairs at all. But in January we watched the comic Finnish opera Covid fan Tutte, and – it was weird. After that, no one else wanted to watch opera with me for a while.

For a week or so after Stenson’s recital posted, I waited for the others to come around. Finally, I watched it by myself in my office late one afternoon. I moved the YouTube tab from my laptop to my big monitor, switched it to full screen, and listened with the small external speakers I usually use when I listen to music on my computer while working. Since I was in my office, it registered with the kids as “Mommy’s working” which meant that I was fair game for constant interruptions to help with their homework.

These are admittedly not the best circumstances, even among the limited options available these days, but I’ve learned to take what I can get.

Andrew Stenson

Tenor Andrew Stenson has a long history with Seattle Opera. He was a member of its Young Artist Program for the 2010-2011 season and sang Tonio in La fille du régiment, in 2012/13. I saw that production, but I saw the other cast. So the first time I saw Stenson was last fall on my tv when he sang Nemorino in Elixir of Love on my tv last fall. He was delightfully funny with physical comedy in that performance, which is being made available again this weekend.

High/Low

For the recital, Stenson’s program played with a high/low theme, mixing English art songs with parody songs from the TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (which I have never seen).

But overall, he played things pretty straight. The humor was mostly in the juxtapositions – he wore a Phenomenally Asian t-shirt for the part with the art songs, and a tuxedo while singing the songs with titles like “Sports Analogies”.

In the introduction, he was really open talked about how it was actually healing to get sing songs that fit our current situations so well – songs like “Shitshow” and “End of the Movie.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5S7otzzziM

Details

Andrew Stenson in Recital
Pianist, David McDade
Available indefinitely beginning Friday, January 29, 2021
Watch it embedded above, on the Seattle Opera website and YouTube

{This performance is available free to all. I purchased a Seattle Opera Season subscription for full access to digital content generated during the pandemic.}