Lisa Bielawa: Vireo, The Spiritual Biography Of A Witch’s Accuser – Deborah Voigt

   in Opera Now (May, 2019)
Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser is the ‘first episodic made-for-TV and online opera’. Alas, it is not so interesting as it sounds. Surely the whole point of an episodic narrative is the leave the viewer wanting more, as pretty much any soap opera demonstrates. Vireo turgidly follows a young woman’s timeslip travails over 12 filmed instalments as she reveals her obsession with female visionaries through history, moving from 17th-century witch-hunters to late 19th-century psychoanalysis to the present. The filming locations sound ambitious, including Alcatraz, and the costumed singers and modern-dress musicians share performance areas. Composed by Lisa Bielawa, the music is monotonous and, to these ears, …