Diva Migenes Is a Diva on the Verge

Diva on the Verge
conceived & written by Julia Migenes; additional text by Bruce Villanche
original production directed by Travis Preston
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
through January 9, prior to France
(January 1, 7, 8 at 8pm; January 2, 9 at 7pm)

Opera diva Julia Migenes performed Diva on the Verge ten years ago at the Odyssey after a triumphant London engagement; at that time she showed a bold bravura that still is tantalizingly delicious. After beginning the evening with a disclaimer that more or less states "if you expect serious opera, you have come to the wrong venue", Migenes clearly and frankly details the practically impossible feats that are expected from a diva in an operatic performance and then proceeds to illustrate them to the audience through wickedly exaggerated yet endearingly loving renditions.

Opera is nothing less than over-the-top, so Migenes' biting humor of each scene makes it that much more scintillating and enjoyable to watch. Take, for example, Lucy's mad scene from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. Unable to marry the man she loves and forced by her brother to marry another, the woman, as Migenes describes her, is cuckoo from the start. She goes to great physical extremes to illustrate the madness, like crawling around the stage and then climbing on top of the piano and putting her head full of tossed red hair directly in front of and blocking the view of superb accompanist Victoria Kirsch, so that she cannot read the notes of the aria. Migenes' physical comedy is brilliant and she never misses a beat. Another example is Juliet's Poison Aria from Gounod's Romeo and Juliet. Could a 15 year-old singer portray the 15 year-old Juliet? No way, explains Migenes, who shows the psychological agony and mental stress that the diva assigned to play her must convey. A fat 40 year-old might be cast, but never an inexperienced 15 year-old. In opera, it just cannot work! There is also a wonderful display of adroit physical comedy with Violeta's death scene from Verdi's La Traviata, in which Migenes literally drags herself across the stage on the strength of one arm, at times falling face forward over a settee and then stretching backwards over it to the floor in quick fits of dying. Not unlike memorable bits from The Carol Burnett Show, these engender a hilarious tour-de-force. "To play a heroine dying of consumption, you'd better be in perfect health", Migenes warns. And "It's not over until the fat lady sings"; thus, the piece de resistance is Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. Migenes essays Isolde, a role she claims, is out of her range as actress and singer due to the largeness required of most Wagnerian women. She sits atop the piano and drapes herself with excessive pieces of clothing attempting to look right as Isolde. The result is deliriously unforgettable.

There are also brief glimpses of other divas such as Madame Butterfly, Salome, and Manon. Migenes ingeniously carries it all off with costume changes in full view of her audience. In fact, watching her change and the comments she makes about the wigs and apparel add much enjoyment to the proceedings.

Apart from the entertaining nature of the piece, there is an abundance of educational insight such as a description of the length of the vocal chords in relation to those of a piano. How can an opera singer possibly keep up? It's an amazing feat to accomplish, or as Migenes describes it "like a chihuahua trying to bark like a great dane". Yet, Migenes does it exceedingly well and truly adores every morsel of it. The long and short of it prove Julia Migenes to be a genuinely gifted and exquisite artiste who, like most other divas, just wants to have fun.