East Village Opera

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I've seen posters around town for this in Ottawa, and being that they're Ottawa guys just wondering if anyone knew anything more about them. Perhaps Velvet? oops. Just checked and the Ottawa show has come and gone.

Article from Toronto Star

Band throws rock at Puccini

Tyley Ross here with East Village Opera Company

Their gloves-off treatment of arias causes N.Y. buzz

Nov. 8, 2005. 06:19 AM

RICHARD OUZOUNIAN

ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER

Think of it as The Constantines meet the Canadian Opera Company.

Tomorrow night, Tyley Ross comes back to Toronto and he's performing at the Mod Club on College St.

But as you might have guessed from the venue, the musical theatre star won't be singing selections from the musicals like Tommy, Forever Plaid and West Side Story that made him famous.

No, this time he's offering what you could call punk Puccini, rock video Verdi and balls-to-the-wall Bizet.

Say hello to the East Village Opera Company, one of the strangest, but hottest, new acts in the music business.

It features Ross, fellow vocalist AnnMarie Milazzo, a seven-piece rock band and a string quartet — arranged and led by Peter Kiesewalter.

They take classic operatic arias and perform them to rock grooves with electrifying results. Are you ready for a version of "La Donna E Mobile" that winds up feeling a lot like "Bohemian Rhapsody"?

You may not think so, but it works amazingly well and the group's debut CD on Universal is already causing ripples in both the classical and rock music scenes.

"The group's charisma is inescapable and infectious," raved Time Out New York, while the New York Post assured the tradition-minded that "opera buffs are likely to find joy, because the tunes aren't bastardized, but electrified."

Not bad for two guys from Ottawa who latched on the concept for the band when goofing around with a creative idea.

Ross and his collaborator Kiesewalter both grew up in the nation's capital but didn't know each other back then. "Except for the fact that his girlfriend was my voice teacher," laughs Ross during a recent trip to Toronto.

The boyishly handsome 34-year-old started out as a busker and member of numerous Ottawa rock groups before coming to Toronto in 1992 to make it big.

Ross spent some time in Forever Plaid, then landed the title role in the 1995 production of Tommy. He never looked back after that, starring in a number of musicals at Shaw, Stratford and CanStage as well as on Broadway.

Then in 2001, Ross found himself shooting a campy comedy-thriller called Kiss of Debt.

"I played an opera wannabe," recalls Ross, "whose career is being financed by a Mafia don (played by Ernest Borgnine)."

The film was being scored by Kiesewalter, who had made a name for himself in Ottawa bands like The Angstones and Fat Man Waving, before heading down to New York, where he became a resident composer for the ABC network.

After Ross had sung a few tracks for the film, the producer, Derek Diorio, offered to finance an entire album of Ross singing opera.

"I had no interest in doing it," insisted Ross, "because I thought it would be a creative dead end for me. The opera world doesn't exactly welcome outsiders."

But Diorio was persistent and Ross found himself in a studio with Kiesewalter and a piano.

"He later described our first session as `a Grade 4 music recital.'" Ross blushes. "I thought we'd never try it again. But a few days later, Pete came back and he had laid some heavy drums down on the track. I sang it differently. Then he brought in some electric guitar and it changed the way I sang again."

They wound up recording 15 songs but didn't know what to do with them.

"Pete finally said, `Let's press a couple of hundred CDs, do a few concerts and if it doesn't work, we'll wash our hands of it.'"

They made their debut at the National Arts Centre's Studio Theatre in February of 2004 and hit the prestigious Joe's Pub at the Public Theatre in New York a few weeks later.

"We had the most overwhelming response," remembers a surprised Ross. "It was a completely visceral, passionate reaction, which I think is totally appropriate.

"When these songs were written, they weren't the polite little pieces they've now become. They were heart-on-your-sleeve, everything-out-there, unedited human emotion. I believe if these operas were being written today, they would have gone straight to rock videos."

The Manhattan press embraced them while record companies started beating a path to their door. And Joe's Pub, a much sought after venue, became their home away from home, welcoming them for several appearances, always to packed and cheering crowds.

Ross is typically modest about their success. "I think we happened on a good idea when people were hungry for it. There's a bit of an anemic music scene out there. It hasn't evolved much in the past few years; it just cannibalizes itself. We seemed like something fresh. So old, it was new again."

Although they're still experimenting with the form, Ross has found some composers they can't mesh with.

"It doesn't work with Mozart. At least not for me, because I can't sing it very well. His stuff demands breath control that the average rock singer just doesn't have. And we don't do a lot of Baroque, because the form is too different."

After living with it for a while, Ross is no longer as surprised that audiences will come to a rock venue to hear arias being sung.

"Whether people think they know opera or not, they still recognize these songs. From Bugs Bunny cartoons, TV commercials, movie soundtracks, or grandma's Victrola. It's part of our DNA.

"And when audiences hear it played in a way that interfaces with how they relate to music today, it releases a powerful energy."

So expect Tyley Ross to be with the East Village Opera Company for a good long time.

When can Toronto audiences expect to see him in a conventional theatre production again?

"That's easy," he laughs. "I'll be back on stage in a musical when I've run out of money."

[rubberdinghy]

When Stephie and I went to NYC, I got a sampler DVD from Tower Records...It's pretty neat...[color:purple]Almost like when Metallica recorded with a symphony orchestra!

Edited November 8, 2005 by Guest

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So you'd recommend this then?

That Metallica experiment was awful. Master of Puppets got slaughtered by a conductor of all people. Ug.

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[AdamH]

I went to Barrymore's last time they were here. It really really sucked. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

[AdamH]

By the way the crowd was mostly mid-30s lame ducks who were excited to be at a rock show.

[rubberdinghy]

mmmmm, not so much recommend it...the sampler I got has some live concert footage and a song from the new CD....that's it....I should have said it's a neat concept. I used to like odd things like that...Danzig's Black Aria album was "neat" but I wouldn't recommend it without first listening.

You take opera singing and rock guitar and put it together...actually put it this way...boy band-opera-guitar riffs...I dunno...If I knew how to rip a DVD, I'd post it...

Edited November 8, 2005 by Guest

[AD]

OK, well, it sounded like a good idea. I guess the guy writing was one of those 30-somethings trying to be at a rock show.

Thanks for the tips

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[rubberdinghy]

Here AD...I think I figured out....

click here