by Mike Telin
In her 2023 article “The History of Snake Handling in Religion,” published in Grunge, Sarah Crocker writes, “According to National Geographic, [the practice] is now most often understood as a uniquely American religious observance, typically practiced in rural Appalachian churches that are associated with Pentecostal Christians and other charismatic Protestant denominations.”
On Friday, February 2 at 8:00 pm in the Kleist Center for Arts & Drama, Baldwin Wallace Opera will present Taking Up Serpents. With a score by Kamala Sankaram and an original story inspired by librettist Jerre Dye’s roots in the Deep South, the opera tells the story of 25-year-old Kayla, the estranged daughter of a fire-and-brimstone preacher who is dangerously bitten by one of his own snakes. Kayla’s journey home forces her to confront her troubled upbringing.
Last Thursday evening, Laura Carlson Tarantowski’s bright set design, beautiful in its classical symmetry, served as a perfect foil to the messy romantic tangles of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, when Baldwin Wallace Opera’s engaging production opened for four performances in John Patrick Theater. “Welcome to a world of love, lust, disguise, joy, grief, and madness,” director Benjamin Wayne Smith wrote in his program note. “The plot can be confusing,” he added. No kidding!