Imagine the comedic potential of a sport in which the winner coaxes the most bird calls out of an avian accomplice.
It sounds made-up, but vinkensport, or finch-sitting, is very real. It dates back to the 16th century, and is still a big deal indeed in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. In 2007, finch-sitting caught the attention of The New York Times, which revealed an astonishingly competitive sport: one trainer pumped up his bird by blasting Guns N’ Roses; another had recently been caught swapping a CD player for her bird and fled the competition before she could be disqualified.
Composer David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek pounced on this golden opportunity, and their “Vinkensport, or the Finch Opera” premiered in 2010. Houston Grand Opera’s new digital production, which debuts Oct. 23, plays up the quirkiness of a competition that has seen its fair share of oddballs.
“Even though it’s about the sport, it’s more about each of the characters,” says co-director Ryan McKinney. “What’s great about the piece is that it’s really hysterical in one moment and then really touching in the next.”
McKinney and co-director E. Loren Meeker have filmed “Vinkensport” as a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary a la “Best in Show.” The six competitors — a seventh, non-singing role plays one of their butlers — sit across from their birdcages and address the camera. Their interviews alternate with B-roll footage of the characters going about their lives, so “sometimes what they say juxtaposed with what they’re doing on camera can be quite funny or revealing in different ways,” McKinney says.
“Vinkensport” was filmed in the backyard of a home in Meyerland. Since the cages are lined up about six feet apart, the opera is perfect for social distancing. But, offers Meeker, its themes of loneliness and yearning to belong resonate underneath the absurdity.
“I think what’s brilliant about the piece is it allows us to have moments where we’re absolutely laughing at the absurdity of these characters, and then really — quite surprisingly — (get) overwhelmed by just how poignant that search for community is,” she says.
All of the characters are anonymous, known only by their bird’s name. Some are drawn directly from real life — the woman who put a CD player in her bird’s cage; another man who allegedly fed his bird drugs so it would tweet faster. (The finch’s onomatopoetic call is known as a suskewiet; birds can be disqualified for mispronunciation.)
The past looms over many characters. Prince Gabriel’s Trainer is the son of a world-champion finch-sitter who worries about measuring up to his father’s legacy. McKinney, a bass-baritone who has appeared in HGO’s “Rigoletto” and “Don Giovanni,” plays Atticus Finch’s Trainer, a curmudgeonly man who probably takes the sport more seriously than his fellow contestants.
“My character gets this sort of monologue in the end after everyone’s left and the competition is over, about his friendship with this bird,” he says. “I won’t give away the ending, but it’s very touching. He sort of breaks down his gruff exterior.”
“I think Atticus is really the heart and the soul of the piece,” adds Meeker.
Other characters are considerably more light-hearted. Sir Elton John’s Trainer, played by soprano and frequent HGO star Nicole Heaston (“La bohème,” “The Magic Flute”), is the wife of the competition’s sponsor, and far more interested in drinking martinis than counting suskewiets. She and Meeker were able to devise a rather elaborate burlesque routine using Heaston’s martini glass and flirtations with the other contestants.
“We didn’t want it to feel choreographed,” says Meeker, a frequent HGO collaborator who recently took over as general and artistic director of Opera San Antonio. “We just wanted her to have things to play with, and she just took the ideas and ran with them and completely made them her own.”
According to McKinney, the “emotional storytelling” embedded in the music prevents these characters from descending into self-parody.
“I think it’s very human,” he says. “These characters are sort of ridiculous until they’re not. You find yourself really being on their side and moved by their stories.”
Envisioning “Vinkensport” as a film rather than a “stage capture” — filming a production exactly as it would look onstage in a theater, as in the Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” series — allowed Meeker and McKinney to put the audience in the middle of the action through the use of close-ups and other cinematic devices.
In this environment, “you can add all kinds of stories that you wouldn’t normally be able to add onstage,” says McKinney. “We’re really trying to lean into that genre to be able to explore how film and opera can work together.”
Chris Gray is a Galveston-based writer.
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