Experience Invisible Cities, an Innovative, Italo Calvino-Inspired Opera Staged in LA’s Union Station

The site spe­cif­ic opera Invis­i­ble Cities is up and run­ning at LA’s his­toric Union Sta­tion. Loca­tion aside, some­thing in this orig­i­nal work demands that I sub­ject it to the New York Mag­a­zine Approval Matrix I car­ry around in my mind. It’s a snarky, quad­fur­cat­ed rat­ing sys­tem for the lat­est trends and hap­pen­ings.

The phrase “based on an Ita­lo Calvi­no nov­el” should guar­an­tee it a spot in the High­brow range.

Opera purists might con­sid­er the fact that tick­et hold­ers must rely on wire­less head­phones to get the full sound mix as rea­son enough to send this inno­v­a­tive work to the Despi­ca­ble end of a “delib­er­ate­ly over­sim­pli­fied guide to who falls where on our taste hier­ar­chies.” A philis­tine myself, I think match­ing wan­der­ing singers to an invis­i­ble live orches­tra (they’re sequestered in a near­by room) sounds Bril­liant. It’s as if a  silent dis­co and a flash mob mat­ed, giv­ing birth to a baby with imper­vi­ous street cred and an incred­i­ble set of pipes. Here, have a lis­ten…

Unlike the typ­i­cal Improv Every­where lark, the audi­ence here is in on this gag. Though inno­cent passers­by may won­der why var­i­ous indi­vid­u­als are moon­ing around the ter­mi­nal singing, Invis­i­ble Cities is a tick­et­ed per­for­mance. Indeed, its pop­u­lar­i­ty is such that the pro­duc­ers have need­ed to add extra free shows. Approval Matrix sug­gests it’s time to hop a train to LA.

H/T Kim L.

via GigaOm

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Hap­pens When Every­day Peo­ple Get a Chance to Con­duct a World-Class Orches­tra

Watch a Whim­si­cal Ani­ma­tion of Ita­lo Calvino’s Short Sto­ry “The Dis­tance of the Moon”

Stephen Fry Hosts “The Sci­ence of Opera,” a Dis­cus­sion of How Music Moves Us Phys­i­cal­ly to Tears

Ayun Hal­l­i­day dreams that her opera-hat­ing 13-year-old son will one day con­sent to attend anoth­er free dress rehearsal at the Met, so that she can chap­er­one. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday