Murmurs starting surfacing of Karen O’s psycho opera, Stop The Virgens, a few months back. However, details were kept to a minimum leaving curious imaginations to run wild. Karen O, best known as the front woman of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and her for audacious fashion statements, has never been shy when it comes to expressing her true self. Musically, she has received Grammy and MTV VMA nominations for her work with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, scored tracks for feature films Where the Wild Things Are and Jackass, and played alongside Bjork, The White Stripes, and The Strokes. But does she have what it takes to make a successful opera? This traditional classical music genre is rarely depicted in the main stream. Yet, the standard definition of an opera is ‘an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and a musical score’.
Of course she has what it takes to make this perform piece phenomenal. Karen’s partner in crime, Christian Joy, is responsible for creating the costumes for the show. Her designs are imaginative, inspiring, and make you wish you could take a walk through his brain just to get a glimpse of how she views the world.
Karen stated: I have a pretty good idea of what the psycho opera is about but I wouldn’t dare try and put it into my clumsy words. I’m hoping to create an original live experience, it should feel like a psychedelic ride laced with catharsis. There is emotional cost to our narrative so we’re aiming to engage the audience, this piece isn’t aiming to be all about spectacle or abstraction though there is good helping of both in the production. It’s aiming to have all the good stuff of escapist entertainment with a few sucker punches to the gut along the way. I’m in the camp that needs to discover and take risks, sometimes it’s with the promise of something special and new, sometimes it’s to stay awake, either way it’s much more stressful with all the uncertainty but worth the pain in the end.
Stop The Virgens has been described as “an assault on the tragic joys of youth, fever dreams drenched in visual seduction, a cathartic spell spun through a cycle of nine songs”. The psycho opera is being produced by The Creators Project and will be taking place October 12-22 at Saint Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO. Tickets start at $45. Click here to purchase tickets.
STOP THE VIRGENS
Co-created by Karen O & KK Barrett
Music Direction by Sam Spiegel & Nick Zinner
Directed by Adam Rapp
Featuring Money Mark, Jack Lawrence, Patrick Keeler, Brian Chase, Nick Zinner, Jason Grisell, Gillian Rivers, Yuiko Kamakari, Justin Kantor and Lili Taylor
Choreography by Mariangela Lopez
Choir Direction by Debra Barsha
Costume Design by Christian Joy
Make Up and Hair design by Mike Potter
Projection Design by Darrel Maloney
Lighting Design by Keith Parham
Sound Design by Andres Velasquez
