Another One Bites (2020)

Another One Bites is a three-act opera about a high school girl named Mel in Mesa, Arizona, during the 1980s. She ditches an anti-drug assembly to smoke pot and hides from a cop in a porta-potty—which becomes a portal to a parallel universe.

Another One Bites is part of the podcast opera “Aqua Net & Funyuns” commissioned and produced by Experiments in Opera. It is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever you listen to podcasts

Music & story by Jason Cady

Joanie Brittingham, soprano
Rachel Doehring, soprano
Kamala Sankaram, soprano
Eliza Bonet, mezzo-soprano
Rocky Duval, mezzo-soprano
Brandon Snook, tenor
Eric McKeever, baritone
Joshua Jeremiah, bass-baritone

Dmitry Glivinskiy, piano and music director
Jeanann Dara, viola and violin
Jeff Hudgins, reeds
Drew Fleming, electric guitar
Pat Swoboda, bass
Jason Cady, modular synthesizer

Cara Ehlenfeldt, sound design
Jeff Cook, mixing

Jason Cady’s music, which has given rise to this form, is jazzy and conversational itself. It raises the question: what is the role of the word in opera? Stories are often advanced to be sure. Yet in most operas they do not drive. It is the music alone that gives us an operatic evening. Music is not minimized by EIO. It does not, however, seem more important than the story. And this may be one clue to a successful future for the form. Good stories are key to new audiences. Minecraft and Roblox, the video games which have caught fire in the imaginations of a new generation of potential fans, may well be the source of Experiments in Operas next podcast series. EIO can probably outdo them. We eagerly await their next experiment.

— Susan Hall, Berkshire Fine Arts, December 9, 2020

Opera Profile: Aqua Net and Funyuns

“Aqua Net & Funyuns” was a 2020 project by New York City-based opera company Experiments in Opera taking the form of a podcast where in each 25-minute episode, three one-act “operas” are performed, each with their own plot and cast of characters.

However, all three are connected by “easter eggs” (hidden elements) that tie each of the operas together, and form a longer narrative. The entire project featured a team of eight (four composers and four librettists) and was the result of another project, a one-month collaborative scheme called the “Writers Room,” where writers of podcast fiction collaboratively conceived of episodic narratives which were then turned into libretti and set to music. In the end, each story featured non-traditional subject matter yet wholly relatable drama. The exploratory company “Experiments in Opera,” founded in 2010 by team Aaron Siegel, Matthew Welch and Jason Cady, is dedicated towards producing and workshopping new operatic works and revolutionizing what the operatic genre looks like in the 21st century.

They emphasize the importance of storytelling in each of their projects, and works with composers to help discover the power of storytelling and compelling plots that emphasize both the experiences of their creators and relevant themes both understandable and relatable by audiences.

The first episode featured three operas, with music composed by three different composers and stories written by Experiments in Opera founder Jason Cady and Cara Ehlenfeldt. “The Understudy” (Kamala Sankaram) is about a detective undercover as an understudy spying on a soprano who can’t sing, “Ships that Pass” (Aaron Siegel),  a queer son finds out his mother writes queer fanfiction and is conflicted, and “Another One Bites” (Jason Cady), a high-schooler finds a portal to another dimension in the school bathroom. The inspiration for the podcast came from action-fiction type podcasts, where stories are read using innovative methods of storytelling, vocal inflections, musical backgrounds, and sound effects to create an immersive, sonic experience for listeners.

Experiments in Opera took this type of format, and created an “operatic” experience exploiting the suspense that cliff-hangers have in maintaining plot development and the form of the podcast itself. Each opera is presented, but not in its entirety, and to understand the full narrative a listener has to listen to multiple episodes to understand each plot. The cast of performers for the project featured eight classically-trained opera singers ranging from a soprano to bass-baritone, and an instrumental ensemble of five consisting of everything from a viola to a bass guitar. Leading the musical operation was director Dmitry Glivinskiy, a Ukrainian-born vocal coach and opera conductor currently on faculty at Hofstra University as a vocal coach.

For Daniel Shephard (librettist of “Beauty Shot”, music by Tariq Al-Sabir), the highlight of the experience was getting the chance to write an opera:

“I had never written an opera before so learning that process, and the jargon and structural elements was really fun and eye-opening as a writer. Now, when people ask me what I’ve been up to this year, I can say ‘Oh nothing, just wrote an opera.’”

—John Vandevert, Opera Wire, October 17, 2022

A pot-smoking high school student is transported via port-a-potty back to the Michigan town from which she was uprooted in Another One Bites, with a libretto and music by Jason Cady. The Queen song yields to pulsating rhythms, while telegraph-style recitatives alternate with the often searing, soaring outbursts of a teenager trying to sort things out in the Reagan era.

—Rick Perdian, Seen and Heard International, December 7, 2020

AS EVERYONE STRUGGLED through the pandemic without live concerts, opera or theatre, creative organizations tried to find ways to keep culture alive and thriving. One fine example is the podcast Aqua Net and Funyuns, created by Experiments in Opera and released in December.

It consists of five three-act mini operas, described as “five original stories created in quarantine by a TV-inspired ‘Writers’ Room’ for the socially distanced, premiere-hungry listeners of contemporary music and opera.”

The stories cover an unusual collection of incidents that have connecting ties among them all, including a murder in an opera house (The Understudy, libretto by Jason Cady and Cara Ehlenfeldt, music by Kamala Sankaram); a story about gay identity within a family (Ships That Pass, libretto by Cara Ehlenfeldt, music by Aaron Siegel); a crazy encounter in a hair salon (Beauty Shot, libretto by Daniel Shepard, music by Tariq Al-Sabir); hallucinatory time travel as a result of something smoked (Another One Bites, libretto and music by Jason Cady); and a man who finds his deceased wife reincarnated as an exotic fish (Arkana Aquarium, libretto by Annie-Sage Whitehurst, music by Michi Wiancko). The podcast is presented in five roughly half-hour-long segments. The operas are presented interspersed, one act at a time, with three acts per segment and not in a linear order.

Aqua Net and Funyuns is very similar to the old radio plays. Each act is presented with introductory narration by Annie-Sage Whitehurst, who’s careful to offer enticing entry into the drama without giving away plot twists. I had the advantage of having the librettos in-hand while listening; in most instances, I would have been fine without them, but a listener without them might get confused. Perhaps in future projects of this sort, Experiments in Opera will consider offering a means for listeners to follow the stage directions or even the entire text.

The music covers an array of styles, with a prominent debt to popular music. There are pop ballads and hints of Broadway, jazz and funk, yet there are also passages that evoke Schönbergian sprechstimme, lyrical arias in an American classical mode, some first-rate choral writing and even a delightful coloratura aria for an amateur singer. There are a few miscues—passages of texts with emphasis on the wrong syllables, an oppressive single-note bass ostinato that recurs too frequently, and music that’s equal parts country-western and James Bond in a context it doesn’t fit. But the overall effect is both fun and campy, as well as occasionally heart-warming or poignant.

The excellent cast of singers includes sopranos Kamala Sankaram, Rachel Doehring and Joanie Brittingham, mezzos Eliza Bonet and Rachel Duval, tenors Brandon Snook and Tariq Al-Sabir, and baritones Eric McKeever and Joshua Jeremiah. Keyboardist and music director Dmitry Glivinskiy keeps things lively as he leads the small, highly skilled instrumental ensemble. Aqua Net and Funyuns is an entertaining work of audio theatre—and well worth a listen.

—Arlo McKinnon, Opera News, May 2021