[Dixielandjazz] Queenie Pie reviewed -- Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2014

[Robert Ringwald]

'Queenie Pie' Picks Up Where Duke Ellington Left Off
by Mark Swed
Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2014
Did Duke Ellington want to write an opera? Absolutely. He was working on "Queenie
Pie" when he died in 1974.
Did he have an opera in him? We will never know. He had been intending to write one
for four decades and never did.
Still, the notion of an Ellington opera comique, as he dubbed "Queenie Pie" -- a
work that was to have affectionately parodied and honored opera, as it affectionately
parodied and honored Harlem culture -- is irresistible.
The first attempt to fashion something from what Ellington left behind into stage-worthy
material was in Philadelphia in 1986. It wasn't a success and the arrangements by
Maurice Peress (who worked with Ellington) have been lost. There have been other
efforts since -- notably by Oakland Opera Theater and, in Austin, at the University
of Texas. They weren't big successes either.
Sunday night, Long Beach Opera made the most ambitious effort yet in the premiere
of a new version, engagingly staged and wonderfully sung, of "Queenie Pie." Ellington's
greatness was clearly, exuberantly felt. Or maybe I should say implied.
What we have of "Queenie Pie" are scraps: melodies for some songs, lyrics and indications
of harmonies. But Ellington, whose way of composing was ultimately collaborative,
never knew how he would ultimately fashion his material until he had started working
with his band.
The new arrangement is credited to trombonist Marc Bolin and Long Beach Opera conductor
Jeffrey Lindberg and based on both the Oakland and Austin versions. Bolin, in a pre-concert
talk, said that he had little experience in arrangement and that that was the point.
He didn't want to leave his own musical personality on the score. Of course, he had
no way of supplying Ellington's trademark and essential unpredictability.
There was a lot, on all levels, for Long Beach Opera to come up with. First of all,
the plot.
Queenie Pie is the annual title afforded a winning beautician, and the current regal
Queenie has had it 10 years running for her hair-straightening products. She is now
threatened by the younger, more glamorous -- and fashionably lighter-skinned -- Cafe
O'Lay. That causes jealousy that is further inflamed when Queenie's manager and lover,
Holt Faye, falls for Ms. O'Lay, who shoots and kills Holt in a lovers' quarrel.
Queenie Pie then sets out to an uncharted island in search of a magic flower, meets
up with a king and a witch doctor and ultimately has reconciliation with Cafe O'Lay.
The show resembles a Broadway musical in its use of songs, dances and dialogue. Ellington
handled all this with a light touch but with serious intent, dealing with issues
of aging (his own mortality was pressing in those last years) and the concerns of
African American discrimination between the lighter and darker skinned.
The final product that reached the stage to make all this come to life included songs
Ellington had written for "Queenie," along with others, familiar ("I Let a Song Go
Out of My Heart" and "Creole Love Call") and unfamiliar. Because there was talk of
a television production of "Queenie Pie" at one point, Ellington also played around
with the idea of writing his own mock commercials, and those are used as well.
Ellington sketched some winners. The opening chorus, "New York, New York," is as
excitingly cosmopolitan a Big Apple theme song as any of the town's other driving
anthems, and it deserves wide exposure. "Full Moon at Midnight," an island song,
is bittersweet classic Ellington. The lyrics, on which Ellington and others contributed,
are not inspired and occasionally arch, but the music speaks for itself.
Ken Roht's staging and choreography evoke Ellington's Cotton Club era with a fluidity
that helps counter the patchwork nature of the songs and dance numbers. He also has
an electrifying cast to work with, most from musical theater.
Karen Marie Richardson is a domineering, funny and moving Queenie. Anna Bowen's Cafe
O'Lay is a vulnerable beauty. Keithon Gipson, the one singer who comes out of opera,
is a commanding figure as Holt and the King on the island. I worried about too much
racial stereotyping in Jeffrey Polk's approach to Lil' Daddy and the Witch Doctor,
but not at all about his total command of the stage.
A facile 10-member ensemble of singers and dancers were a pleasure at all times.
Lindberg conducted a dynamic big band, but it remained far too blandly background
to sound like's Ellington's. Danita Korogodsky's fancifully painted sets and Dabney
Ross Jones' stylish and whimsical costumes proved added attractions.
Unfortunately, though, the amplification system in the Warner Grand has a whimsically
destructive mind of its hissing, distorting, uglifying own. Presumably that will
be fixed.
"Queenie Pie" obviously tantalizes. Long Beach Opera's production (which is a co-production
with Chicago Opera Theater, where it will be given next month) reveals that the score's
best moments are too good to let be lost to history. And yet Ellington's opera will
always taunt history. It can never be Ellingtonian.
___________________________________
Queenie Pie: Opera Review
by Myron Meisel
Hollywood Reporter, January 27, 2014
An opera by Duke Ellington? Well, almost, sort of. Like many of the Master's creations,
tunes and notions for Queenie Pie had been marinating in his well-traveled trunk
for an extended period until public broadcasting commissioned the project in 1970
as a one-hour television opera. After funding dried up, Ellington worked on expanding
it to a full-length piece until his death in 1974. Loosely inspired by the model
of cosmetics mogul Mme. C.J. Walker, America's first female self-made millionairess,
Queenie Pie was not merely unfinished, but meaningful portions of the original materials
and subsequent orchestrations have also been lost. So although efforts have been
made to mount a playable version since 1986, none can be justly called a "reconstruction"
or "restoration" because it has never actually existed in any determinate form. Instead,
each attempt must content itself with seeking new inspirations based upon the core
of Ellington essence.
This new coproduction between Long Beach Opera and Chicago Opera Theater (both felicitously
under the artistic management of Andreas Mitisek) represents an aspirational and
relatively expensive undertaking for the scrappy companies. Happily, from the opening
fanfares the pit band nails the Duke's distinct orchestral sound, splendidly seeded
with such star ringers as Dr. Bobby Rodriguez, Justo Almario, Prof. Charles Owens,
George Bohannon and Trevor Ware, all of whom have Ellington spliced into their DNA.
With the first act set in Harlem among upper-crust aspirational blacks, and the second
on an unnamed imaginary island inhabited by natives of obscure French-African pedigree,
the progress of the libretto often seems bumpy and ill-matched. It is apparent, however,
that the composer was consciously reaching for a juxtaposition of the urban and the
pastoral with an ambition grounded in an awareness of Shakespeare and Mozart, though
ineffably expressed in his idiomatic voice.
The central conflict concerns the rivalry of older, established beauty celebrity
Queenie (Karen Marie Richardson), who clings in vanity to her annual crowning as
the best of her peers, threatened by the ambitious, more youthful -- and, most critically,
far lighter-skinned -- Cafe O'Lay (Anna Bowen), an upstart newly arrived from New
Orleans to seize her fortune by hawking whitening treatments. The promoter romancing
them both, Holt Fay (Keithon Gipson), sincerely believes he can serve two mistresses
both professionally and personally, and pays for it as both opera and the blues demand.
While Cafe serves her prison term, the grieving Queenie seeks solace in search of
a magically transformative fleur Africaine in the birthplace of her factotum Lil'
Daddy (the appropriately indispensible Jeffrey Polk), where she is importuned yet
not seduced by both the Witch Doctor (Polk) and the widowed King (Gipson).
The production is beset by more than its fair share of troubles, though at base it
remains unfailingly interesting, not only due to Ellington but also to the talents
engaging him. There is an ample amount of new music, invariably engaging to hear,
though also liberal ransacking of his familiar catalogue. Provenance throughout is
bedeviling: what comes from the Duke's intentions for this work or from intervening
revisions or the current adapters can't be discerned.
There is real bite to the satire of intraracial pigmentation consciousness, a bracing
reminder that Ellington could articulately manifest real anger beneath his unyielding
unflappability. One can infer some intriguing ideas about writing for the voice,
though the lyrics are too weak to realize these suggestions, and the cast can be
vocally uneven. There are indications of some haste in the staging, although the
intelligent and generous choreography of director Ken Roht may be quite the best
LBO has yet had the privilege to enjoy. Costume and scenic design are witty and apt.
Most severe, however, were profoundly compromising problems with glitchy microphones
on opening night: no sound designer is credited, and someone was sorely required.
One hopes it can be remedied over the run. It improved meaningfully but not yet adequately
in the second act.
Those expecting a full-blown opera or polished musical may well be frustrated, but
attentive ears and patient minds will derive a great deal of stimulation and intermittent
rewards from this worthy endeavor, the sort to which the LBO admirably dedicates
itself.
___________________________________
Long Beach Opera's 'Queenie Pie' Should Be Appreciated for What It Is
by John Farrell
Long Beach Press-Telegram, January 28, 2014
"Queenie Pie," American composer Duke Ellington's unfinished journey into the world
of opera, is a gem, a flawed gem with beautiful possibilities, but without the artistic
setting it deserves.
It has plenty of swing, plenty of brilliant music in the inimitable Ellington style
and a plot that might have carried it to greatness if it had been finished. But it
wasn't complete at the time of Ellington's death in 1974 and the attempts to make
it whole have had various amounts of success. Long Beach Opera's Artistic Director
Andreas Mitisek commissioned Ken Roht to make his own adaptation, one more resonant
to current issues, and that version opened Saturday night at the Warner Grand Theatre
in San Pedro in a production that had much going for it.
First, there was the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jeffrey Lindberg,
a 16-piece ensemble that became, for the two hours of the opera, a delicious big
band with heavy licks of brass and a clear understanding of the music's style and
swing. Then there was the scenic design by Danila Korogodsky, a delightfully modern
suggestion of a Harlem beauty shop in the first act and an equally attractive green
island setting in the second. Of course there was the cast, which sang with great
enthusiasm when called upon (which wasn't frequently in the first act). There was
even the outline of a libretto, which might have been intriguing if fleshed out.
What there wasn't was a cohesive, intellectually satisfying or even complete opera.
Ellington completed a one-hour version of the work from television in 1972, after
decades of work, but it was not produced. The longer versions have been created from
Ellington's notes, sometimes just scraps of paper. They have been done in Philadelphia,
Washington, D.C., Brooklyn and recently, in 2008, at the Oakland Opera Theater. This
version is the one librettist McGettigan created for the Butler Opera Center at the
University of Texas in Austin, arguably the closest to Ellington's vision.
But even that is no more than a pastiche: long passages filled with music and dance
but with repetitive and less-than-informative words projected fitfully on a screen
above stage. (Strangely, the spoken dialogue isn't reproduced.) When the singers
are given the chance to actually sing with Ellington's music, the story soars and
reaches its heights. But just as often it is killing time, and some in the audience
wondered what was inspired and what was just notes for later.
"Queenie Pie" tells the story of a woman (the commanding Karen Marie Richardson)
who is the queen of beauty in Harlem but who is challenged by a light-skinned and
younger beauty, Cafe O'Lay (Anna Bowen). The plot, which involves a gunshot death
and a magic island of restoration, doesn't deserve much notice.
Richards can scat-sing with the best of them, a little Ella Fitzgerald in her soul
as she answers the phone or struggles with her emotions. Bowen has a lighter voice
but when she and Richardson face off one on one (too few times, alas) they are powerful
and electric.
Keithon Gipson is Holt Faye, Queenie's manager, lover and in the second half of the
opera reappears as the King of the magic island Queenie is sent to. He can handle
all of Ellington's challenges with a simple masculinity and a resonant voice. Jeffrey
Polk is Lil' Daddy, Queenie's factotum (and the opera's comic relief) and the Witch
Doctor as well, two very different personalities but always someone to watch on stage.
Roht directs the ensemble cast with enthusiasm, and there is plenty of dancing, often
delightful, in the mix he creates as choreographer as well as director. Costumes
by Dabney Ross Jones are delightful, effective and never too showy. Brandon Baruch's
lighting, though, leaves a little to be desired, especially in the follow spot. The
Warner Grand is less than an ideal space for opera, and the cast has body mikes that
had some interference from patron's cellphones in the first half of the evening.
"Queenie Pie" is often exciting, often less so: it is all that remains of what might
have been, and needs to be appreciated for that alone.
-30


-Bob Ringwald K6YBV
www.ringwald.com
916/ 806-9551

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