by Jacob Strauss

Si j’etais vous, I would not trust anyone who tries to solve your problems for you. You have to do it yourself, face up to the bleak black wall looming above and keep standing straight. You succumb if you don’t, and that spells long, regressive rest. Atrophying strength. Decomposition.

In Nightingale Opera Theater’s production of Jake Heggie’s 2019 two-act opera If I Were You — presented at Hudson’s Barlow Community Center on Saturday, July 9 — the protagonist, Fabian Hart (tenor Ye Lynn Han), buys the snake oil offered by Brittomara (mezzo-soprano Sydney Murrell), and Hart keeps asking for more. Dressed in red and black, Murrell gave a sharp, Luciferean performance, enabling the young Fabian’s destructive behavior. [Read more…]