Vagabond Opera in the Media

Here’s a GREAT 2-minute clip of Vagabond Opera in ACTION in San Francisco.

- Washington Post

A Vagabond Opera show is a chance to time-travel. Specifically, to 1920s Paris. On a riverboat. With a glass of absinthe in one hand and a long cigarette holder in the other. And — why not? — chatting with Josephine Baker. more…

Rachel Beckman - view publication’s website

Cascadia Weekly; Bellingham, WA

RIGHT NOW, at bars and nightclubs across the country, it isn’t navel-gazing purveyors of indie pop or raucous rocka- billy bands that are drawing crowds and packing houses at un- precedented levels. Instead, it’s the acts that promise a more well-rounded entertainment experience—cabarets, circus acts, vaudeville troupes and the like—that have proven to be hotter than the flame at the end of a fire-eater’s torch. Bellingham is no stranger to this sort of
unorthodox entertainment—with crowds showing up en masse for the traveling talents of the Yard Dogs Road Show and the MarchFourth Marching Band—and we’ve shown ourselves to be far fromimmune to the effects of such intoxicating diversions. While all this exposure for cabaret-style nightclub acts is undoubtedly good for those trying to make a liv- ing as practitioners of what are often old-time art forms, it also means that a person can’t just slap on a pair of striped socks and suck down some fire and call themselves an act these days. They’ve ei- ther got to be very good or bring something very new to the table, or, in the case of the Vagabond Opera, do a lot of both.

While many acts of the Vagabond Opera’s ilk ex- cel in stunts and trickery, content to let music play second fiddle, this Portland-based band’s emphasis rests squarely on the sonic spectacle of the thing. And “opera” just isn’t part of a catchy name—in fact, bandleader and mindtrust Eric Stern was actually in training, for a time, to become a full-fledged opera sing- er before abandoning this pursuit to run off to Paris to become a writer. While he did not write the Great Franco- American Novel, Stern did immerse himself in a variety of languages, musical tradi- tions and religious influences. Along the way, his travels deposited him and his big ideas in Portland, where he met several other likeminded individuals and the Vaga- bond Opera was born.

The band’s music consists of elements of the aforementioned opera, as well as klezmer, jazz, tango, swing and just about any other musical genre you can name all mixed up and stirred into a hot sonic stew, which is sung in no less than 13 different languages with a decidedly Eastern European Bohemian flair. Hav- ing a tough time imagining it? Perhaps it’s betterto think of Vagabond Opera in less-complicated terms, as a band of ceaseless charisma, boundless energy, impeccable musicianship and more than a little touch of both the naughty and exotic. Not to mention their penchant for bowler hats, suspenders and, yes, the obligatory striped socks. What this all adds up to is a band that’s spent the better part of the past five years
or so playing with everyone from the De- cemberists to Al Franken, and everywhere from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to the stage at Boundary Bay, where they will show off their unique interpre- tation of the operatic arts at 10:30pm Fri., March 28. Along the way, they’ve
helped further what’s becoming known as the “neo-cabaret” movement and helped make opera, of all things, hip. Not bad for six people in striped socks.

Carey Ross - view publication’s website

- Read Express

For five years, his sextet, Vagabond Opera, has blended sounds from around the globe, spanning the worlds of folk, pop and classical music. “The show is a cabaret but not in the jazz-hands, modern cabaret sense or in [the sense of] the musical ‘Cabaret,’ for that matter,” Stern explains. “More the cabaret of old Warsaw.” more…

Glenn Dixon - view publication’s website

DC Examiner; Washington, DC

Vagabond Opera weaves an Old World tapestry of Bohemian cabaret rich with Eastern European flavor to create an interactive program with crowd appeal. Its Washington debut introduces the eclectic troupe that has been featured on NPR and in Jazziz Magazine, recorded two albums and performed on stage with the Oregon Symphony, Pink Martini, Al Franken and various other un-likely partners. more…

Emily Cary - DOWNLOAD PDF

- The Forward

Many musicians can trace their choice of career to an act of teenage
rebellion. But Eric Stern may be one of the few whose youthful bad-
boy urges led him to opera — though, to be fair, his Vagabond Opera
ensemble is not your standard opera company. Nor is Stern your
standard opera singer.

Stern’s parents ran an anarcho-syndicalist bookshop and record store
in Philadelphia. And while music of various kinds could be heard
around the Stern household, Verdi and Puccini were not among them.
“For me, rebelling meant studying opera,” Stern told the Forward in
an interview from his home in Portland, Ore. A stint in the chorus of
the Delaware Valley Opera Company led to private voice lessons,
though Stern briefly decamped to Paris to pursue a career as a
writer. “I thought that’s where writers went,” he said.

In the end, Stern returned to the United States and began to win
minor operatic roles. He also began to explore his Jewish heritage
with the help of Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, a fellow Pennsylvania native
and one of the first female rabbis ordained in America. Those
spiritual investigations prompted Stern to look for Jewish
connections in music, as well, and ultimately led him to klezmer.
Stern’s grandmother had performed in the Yiddish theater, and he had
heard some Jewish music as a child; but he now began eagerly soaking
up large quantities of the stuff, delving into recordings by everyone
from traditionalists like the Klezmer Conservatory Band to
experimentalists like John Zorn.

Stern’s curiosity, and his scholarly bent — his conversation is
peppered with references to Aristotle and the Talmud — soon led him
to explore related forms of music from Eastern Europe and the Middle
East. (He’s currently studying Balkan accordion.) Throughout, Stern
has been guided by what he describes as a Talmudic approach to music:
“You immerse yourself in text and in teachings,” he said. For Stern,
that means both understanding the words he sings and learning as much
as possible about the history and culture behind the music. His
interest in Arab percussion, for example, led to several semesters’
worth of Arabic at Portland State University.

The Vagabond Opera might best be seen as the culmination of all this
intellectual and musical restlessness, or as a holding company for
all of Stern’s distantly related interests — or, better yet, as an
ensemble of like-minded musicians who are willing to tackle anything
that Stern can throw at them. The group’s first, eponymous recording
gives a pretty good indication of just what that can involve: The
program covers Aaron Lebedeff’s Yiddish classic, “Romania, Romania”;
traditional Ukrainian, Macedonian and Middle Eastern material; bits
and pieces of various operas, and several Stern originals before
coming to a close on “Otchi Chornyia.”

There’s a strong undercurrent of louche, fin-de-siècle cabaret to the
Vagabond Opera’s work, one that is fed by the ensemble’s lurching
rhythms and madcap energy, and underscored by Stern’s deranged-
ringmaster persona. To hear Robin Jackson, their Sax player intone
the introduction to “Ravella” (“Friends, have you ever had it all?
The glittering gold, the fortune, the girl? And then it was gone, in
one spin of the wheel, one drop of the cards, and one wink of an eye?
… Yes! I mean no! I mean yes! I mean no! But… why don’t you tell us
all about it in song form, using riverboat imagery and perhaps a
monkey or two?”) in the sterntorian tones of a carnival barker is to
hear a man whose love of the absurd is matched only by his complete
lack of inhibition. (The group’s proclivity for bowlers, straw hats
and suspenders only heightens the carnival/cabaret effect, as does
its occasional use of a belly dancer.) “I would hope that we’re
theater in the Attic sense,” Stern said. “At its best, I want it to
blend all of Aristotle’s elements of musicality, theatricality and
all the rest.”

And yet there remains a Jewish substratum to all of this which
emerges not only in Stern’s choice of repertoire (“Romania, Romania”;
Alexander Olshanetsky’s “Ich Hob Dikh Tsu Ful Lib”), but also in his
desire to create a sense of ritual space with each performance. Stern
credits Rabbi Marcia Praeger of Philadelphia with having explained to
him the narrative structure of the Sabbath service, and says that he
models the Opera’s performances along similar lines, pacing the
ensemble and leading audiences “without pandering.” It’s an
interesting analogy, but it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch once
you’ve actually heard the group; antics aside, they cast a powerful
spell.

Alexander Gelfand - view publication’s website

- SF Bay Guardian

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, there run two rivers, one of
vodka and one of absinthe. Not found on any maps, they are known only
to five men and one woman. The name of these musicians? Vagabond
Opera. Fusing klezmer with sounds of the Balkans and the Rom, along
with a peppering of belly dance, opera, and tango, these neo-cabaret
fire starters roll out a rabble-rousing vision of globalization,
1920s-style.

Todd Lavoie - view publication’s website

- MetroActive Silicon Valley

Where are we anyway? The Vagabond Opera, which can be viewed as
either a band or an experience, is based out of the Pacific
Northwest. But their music functions as an axis mundi for the rich
and sensual Gypsy sounds of eastern and western Europe, swing, belly
dance, tangos and klezmer, all tied up in a package of a European-
style cabaret. In other words, these guys have accordions and really
cool hats. Their strings are haunted, their vocals weave in and out
of English, Arabic and Balkan, and their transgenre style makes them
eligible to play gigs as varied as jazz clubs, state fairs and folk
festival

Laura Mattingly -

- The Willamette Week; Portland, OR

Vagrant Valentine Vagabond Opera, or How to Make Love in Eight Languages.

Eric Stern looks like an exiled revolutionary. Black-bearded, he caps his shaved head with a high, fuzzy black hat. He could be in a Parisian dive in 1888, 1908 or 1928, hunched over a notebook, one eye on the Ruthenian nationalist at the corner table.

He could be plotting the ventilation of an Archduke, diagramming a vitriol attack on the visiting czar’s cortege. He favors declarative, manifestolike statements:

“I consider myself a Jewish composer.”

“I come from an Absurdist theater tradition.”

“Public space should be a place of art.”

Given such trappings, the facts do not surprise. His parents ran an anarchist book and record shop in Philadelphia. His grandmother danced in the Yiddish theater. He trained as an opera singer before rejecting classical elitism. He once did run off to Paris. After a five-month road trip landed him in Portland, he earned rent gelt playing accordion and singing on street corners.

Here, Stern fell in with some like-minded souls, and presto: Vagabond Opera, his band, now a six-piece of alienated classicists and romantic bohemians. Gypsy music, opera, klezmer and cabaret come-ons mingle like emigrés trading aliases at an after-hours club. It’s highly cultured, with a guttersnipe’s knowing sneer.

“Back at the turn of the century, poor Italian immigrants flocked to the opera,” says Stern. “The classical tradition is totally valid, I think, but not when it becomes a class thing. One reason the band is called Vagabond Opera is that we’re trying to create an operatic atmosphere that’s for everyone.”

On the night of Saint Valentine, Vagabond Opera stages a cabaret, encouraging costumes and audience participation. Stern plans to flex his tenor in Spanish, English, German, Yiddish, Arabic, Turkish, Russian and a nonsense language. The spirit of counter-cultural cosmopolitanism prevails, as the evening’s timely theme is “Make Love, Not War.”

“I’d say I’m on the fringes of the peace movement,” Stern says. “Too often, people are flagellating themselves. We need a sense of humor, fun and community.”

See? He may look like Trotsky’s nephew, but Eric Stern means nothing but well.

Zach Dundas - view publication’s website

“The 2003 CD Release” - Portland Mercury

To celebrate the release of their new CD, Vagabond Opera, Portland’s premiere band of Klezmer, orchestral hooligans, are having a party. That’s not exactly novel, but the boogie-ing, circus-like, gypsy jazz of their new material sure is. If it’s been any amount of time since you waltzed with buckles in your shoes, this is your opportunity to rectify. Heavy on accordions, horns, and opera voices, they could charm snakes. At times they sound like part of the soundtrack to Fiddler on the Roof, which by the way is an under-appreciated cinematic masterpiece. They also include a cover of “Port of Amsterdam,” a classic that was also performed by the grossly under-appreciated UK acoustic duo the Singing Loins. Expand your cultural capital!

Marjorie Skinner - view publication’s website

- The Oregonian; Portland, OR

Last night, I was in Paris, sipping absinthe and typing away furiously on an old Blickensderfer typewriter, as rain beat against my garret apartment.

Actually, in truth, I was sitting in the gymnasium of McMenamins Kennedy School, sipping water and listening to a band called Vagabond Opera play beneath an old basketball hoop while 4-year-olds danced about in stocking feet. But for those three hours, it was easy to imagine myself living out a bohemian fantasy.

What else could you expect from a band composed of classically trained musicians, ethnomusicologists and the offspring of anarchists, who toss around words such as “absurdist” and sing songs that evoke images of “thieves, Jewish weddings (and) Parisian tramps.”

“What kind of music is this?” a girl asked her father, as the show was about to start.

“Well, it’s sort of klezmer,” he said, searching.

“What’s that?” the girl asked. “Gypsy music?”

“No,” the man said, “But they do some of that, too. It’s hard to describe what they sound like, actually.”

And it truly is. As singer, accordion player and the band’s founder, Eric Stern stepped up to the microphone and the music began, you could hear whispers of not only klezmer and Gypsy tunes, but also opera, cabaret, early jazz, sexy tangos, drunken Irish dirges, Balkan songs and the undulating swells of Arabic belly dance music.

“We get so hung up on categories,” Stern had said, the day before the show. “We live in an age when we can cross genres.”

And apparently, travel back in time, too.

As the band played that night, dressed in bowlers and top hats, and, in the case of the cellist, combat boots, I found myself imaging gas lamps and rain-slick cobblestone streets, tuberculosis and fur coats, basement taverns and underground newspapers, phonographs and hooch, haystacks and shtetls.

On the band’s Web site, Stern — who grew up in Philadelphia (where his parents owned an anarchist book store and record shop), studied opera and ran away to Paris for a time to try to make it as an artist and a writer, and when he first came to Portland, lived out of his Oldsmobile and played accordion on the streets to earn money for first month’s rent — has written that the band is “driven by a desire to rediscover, reinterpret and refresh many vigorous forms of musical expression that have fallen by our cultural wayside.”

In person he puts it another way: “I am so sick of guitars.” (”Oh, boy,” he says and smiles as he watches me write this down, because he knows that it will probably go off like a bomb for some, but then, with his shaved head and commanding voice, he’s not the shy and retiring type. )

Vagabond Opera’s show on this particular night was packed, standing room only: Older, graying couples, families, cool kids with blue hair, bald heads and avant-garde glasses.

“Feel free to sit there and just enjoy the music,” Stern told them all. “But you can also come up and dance. Don’t be afraid to be the first one.”

The first to comply, curiously enough, were the farthest away from the Old World past this music evokes: the audiences’ children, of whom there were a dozen, at least. They flocked to the front, as though hypnotized. “That man,” saxophonist Robin Jackson told me between sets, nodding his top-hatted head toward Stern, “He’s a pied piper.”

Soon it was a preschool mosh pit, with children spinning and leaping and kicking up their heels and screaming in crazed abandon. Stern and Jackson got on their knees to serenade them with saxophone and accordion, and the children engulfed them, and I worried for a minute they might carry the two off in a frenzy, like an army of ants. But the children behaved themselves.

Gradually, adults followed, also transfixed. But the children clearly understood how to channel this music better. Maybe it’s because they are better at imagining things than adults, living in other worlds, but there were moments when I looked up and they did not look young anymore, but older than anyone here.

And then the belly dancer arrived, in a rustle of silk and the tinkling of her gold coin belt. And everyone watched in wonder as Yo Shina threw her hips to the beat. By 9:30 the children had taken their exhausted parents home to bed, and the mood changed.

Now, the candles were burning low. A man and woman took the floor and stared into each other’s eyes. He whirled her around, pressing his hips hard against hers.

If ever you have wondered whether it was possible to freak dance to an accordion, I can say now with great authority, that yes, it is possible. At least, if you are listening to Vagabond Opera.

Then, two women with feathers woven through their hair and fantastically embroidered clothing, took the floor and swayed sultrily, following their own internal rhythm.

At one point during the night, Stern had sung, “I wish I was Marlene Dietrich.”

Oh, but you are, I wanted to say.

Tonight, we are whatever we want to be. Young old children. Accordion lovers. Belly dancers. Bohemian writers.

At least until the music stops.

And then I am just a woman in a dirty Civic, driving home in the dark, far, far from Paris.

Inara Verzemnieks - view publication’s website