“Red Hot Opera: Vagabond Opera”

- The Portland Mercury; Portland OR.

Scandalous scarlet crinolines, old school accordions, guys with waxed
moustaches — who wouldn’t love being temporarily transported to an
old-world cabaret house? Vagabond Opera is a Portland ensemble that
taps into the lusty bohemian in all of us, satisfying days-of-yore
urges with compositions that infuse classical opera with European and
Middle Eastern elements ranging from Persian hot jazz to klezmer to
Ukrainian punk. Sultry and rhythmic, comic and dark, Vagabond Opera
does more than cross music genres; it evokes forgotten mysteries and
celebrates the timeless, tragic joys of life during the group’s
acclaimed stage show.

Eric Stern is the eclectically minded musical maestro behind Vagabond
Opera. A European trained opera singer, Stern felt ill at ease
amongst the regalia of classical opera and longed for “performance on
a more intimate scale.” The breeding ground of creative genius that
is Portland led Stern’s path to cross those of five other highly
trained musical misfits, each on a respective journey to find the
magical crossroads between conventional art and groundbreaking
innovation. Since they began practicing their intoxicating alchemy,
audiences all over the West Coast have lapped up their performance
experience and come back begging for more: more unpredictable tempo
changes, more soul-shattering notes held longer than humanly
possible, more spellbinding stage presence and more haunting melodies
to float upon in dreams come nightfall.

Adrienne van der Valk - Eugene Weekly | Portland, OR view publication’s website