Cinematic, experimental Blue Horse Opera roams through genres, September 19 to 21

A decade in the making, dramatized song cycle blends classic spaghetti-western tones with soprano vocals and flamenco dance to create haunting vision

By Brian Lynch

Rick Maddocks.

Blue Horse Opera runs September 19 and 20 at Vancouver Opera’s Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall and September 21 at the VIFF Centre

EVER BEEN AT the opera and caught yourself thinking, “This could really use some twangy guitars”? You’re in luck. After years in the making and a postponement of the original opening date in June, the surreal, cinema-soaked Blue Horse Opera is coming to the stage from September 19 to 21.

As noted by Pi Theatre (one of the show’s presenting partners, along with Vancouver Opera’s VOICES series and VIFF Live), this uncanny, lyrical work by acclaimed author and singer Rick Maddocks “isn’t an opera-opera.” Rather, it’s a work of experimental storytelling through a fusion of spaghetti-western sounds, soprano vocals, and flamenco dance, evoking a desert landscape that has fallen into toxic ruin at the hands of an oil baron.

Maria Avila.

As Stir covered in June, the piece is based on a 17-track song cycle that Maddocks began composing over a decade ago, during a stay in Almeria, Spain—the shooting location of many classic spaghetti westerns back in the ’60s and ’70s, including greats such as A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Hence the live mix here of Maria Avila’s powerful flamenco dance with Maddocks’s Morricone-haunted music, played and sung by the composer himself alongside the stellar ensemble of trumpeter JP Carter, soprano vocalist Dory Hayley, drummer Stephen Lyons, bassist James Meger, keyboardist Tyson Naylor, and guitarist Jon Wood.

In mood, sound, and visuals, the evening is sure to offer a concert unlike any you’ve seen, and will serve a first taste of Maddocks’s album of the same name, set for release in November.

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