Dracula Letters
The "World Premiere Concert and CD Release Party of S.J. Pettersson's 40 Minute Long Opera, the Dracula Letters,"
took place at Mimoda on Pico Blvd. It was Wednesday night, December 17. Based on a series of letters by Bram Stoker reflecting on the character with whom he will always be associated.
Pettersson's newest creation was forged over long periods of time spent agonizing over materials and micro managing the most infinitesimal details. Some of the mesmerizing mix of differently-configured ensemble pieces, some with affecting, gloriously sung vocal solos, sent waves of shimmering, pulsating sonic beauty into the trendy crowd. It was Pettersson at the top of his game, indulging in his usual modus operandi of guts and style.
Before the music started, Pettersson took the stage to say it was a miracle that The Dracula Letters had happened. It turned out it was a Kickstarter project *aka *a labor of love into which Pettersson poured hundreds if not thousands of hours (but unfortunately for the audience, no libretto).
The performance featured a panoply of Southland stars. There was the mercurial clarinetist Leo Chelyapov, the ascetic virtuoso violinist Moni Simeonov, the soulful cellist Maksim Velichkin who took full advantage of his one big solo. Gee Rabe played a mean accordion in many of the opera's street scene ballads; pianist Tae Yeon Lim accompanied several of the songs with as much care and beauty as if they were Schubert lieder, and Matt Stickman took turns at making strident brass sounds on both a trumpet and trombone.
Altogether the effect was of utter professionalism at the service of a vision, marred only occasionally by the usual opening night glitches: Missing pages and the like.
The star of the night was mezzo Iris Malkin who poured out creamy, lustrous solos and intertwined with Holly Sedillos's no less magnificent soprano to throb longingly with the relentlessly long lines of the music. It was an unfair match for logic for when the last throbbing notes died away and the lights went on, it turned out that house was nearly full, and for one of the few times in his life S.J. Pettersson was left with nothing to say.
He recovered quickly, of course, and hugged and kissed all his friends and relatives and artistic family of which there were many because, like so many who have found even a temporary home in L.A.'s alternative classical music scene, it's all about love, not money.
Laurence Vittes