Perhaps more than any other '90s rock icon, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has remained unapologetically artistically adventurous three decades into his career—while the most recent Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters albums were both terrific, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see Eddie Vedder or Dave Grohl releasing synth-heavy triple concept albums with tracks titled “That Which Animates the Spirit” and “With Ado I Do.”
So while turning a rock opera into an actual opera might seem like a strange choice, it’s on brand for Corgan. The longtime Lyric Opera attendee pitched the project just over a year ago, and thankfully, the powers that be at Lyric, including conductor and arranger James Lowe, were equally adventurous in expanding audiences’ perception of the art form. Thus, the limited-run event A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness, an homage to the Smashing Pumpkins’ iconic 1995 double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, was born.
Saturday night’s audience almost equally comprised elegantly attired opera lovers and Pumpkins fans brandishing decades-old “ZERO” t-shirts. A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness successfully bridged these seemingly disparate worlds by spotlighting approximately two-thirds of the 28 tracks that make up the double album, with stunning new arrangements that showcase Corgan’s songwriting minus the aggressive grit that made these tracks the soundtrack to '90s teen angst.
Curiously, Corgan himself was one of the night’s featured vocalists, alongside soprano Sydney Mancasola, mezzo-soprano Zoie Reams, tenor Dominick Valdés Chenes (making his Lyric debut), and baritone Edward Parks. Corgan sang lead on a trio of songs, the gentle “To Forgive” easily the best of the three. Perhaps it felt appropriate that he tackle Mellon Collie’s biggest hit, “1979,” but personally, I would have loved to hear Mancasola or Reams perform “Thirty-Three,” my personal favorite Pumpkins song and one that Liz Phair proved works beautifully with a feminine touch when she and Corgan performed it as a duet when she opened for the band on a 2014 tour.
The other vocalists—not to mention the 100+ musicians and chorus members—somehow managed to make lyrics like “Jukebox fuck-up hanging 'round the drugstore” feel right at home in the hallowed halls of the Lyric Opera. The only moment where the inherent novelty of the show’s conceit seemed to disrupt the evening was when the chorus exalted, “The world is a vampire,” the familiar opening lyrics of “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” at which the audience burst into spontaneous laughter.
My personal highlights included the lush “Galapagos,” an already gorgeous song brought to soaring new heights by Mancasola and Reams, and Parks’s whimsical jazz reinvention of “By Starlight.” The epic “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans,” led by Reams, was also stunning, while Chenes’s and Mancasola’s take on “Muzzle” proved its bold, introspective lyrics already suited the operatic form.
As expected, the shimmering “Tonight, Tonight,” an ode to Corgan’s hometown of Chicago, served as the night’s motif, appearing thrice throughout the performance, including as the finale with all five vocalists teaming up. “The indescribable moments of your life,” they sang, closing a night that, on paper, seemed too bizarre a concept to work nearly as well as it did. “The impossible is possible tonight,” and thanks to Corgan, Lowe, and company, it certainly was.,
A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness runs at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N Wacker Dr through November 30. Tickets are sold out.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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