“Songs of Love and War” Features Six Underdressed People And A California King Bed

Portland Opera's Songs of Love and War is a lot like your average Saturday night when those new Tinder matches never roll in: full of lust, love, rejection and pain.   

Songs of Love and War draws upon books 7 to 9 of 17th-century Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi's madrigals, touching upon the inflammatory tenderness summoned by both romance and heartbreak. The madrigals featured in the show are not ordered into a story arch, so the performers often express stimulation and melancholia in repetitive strides.

Thanks to the semi-recent baroque-pop fad, the music, which is played live, almost feels contemporary. Aesthetically, the production is like a living painting, complete with six pasty soprano, bass, tenor and baritone soloists decked out in silk bathrobes. There are three female and three male soloists, and their characters' group objective is simple: They must seduce everybody in the room.

To do this, they largely rely on gender norms. The men wear robes that reveal hairy, masculine chests, while the women resemble powdered, radiant sirens, often perched over their stage–basically a California king bed–reeling in their male counterparts with seductive wails. Soloists Kate Farrar and Lindsay Ohse pick on men in the audience by sitting next to them in order to serenade them into the spirit. Ryan Thorn, one of the male soloists, charms the audience by sustaining a playful smile as he jumps around the stage, occasionally tugging a blanket over himself after belting a provocative baritone.

Sometimes, it feels like you're watching wild animals attempting to court one another. But then the humanity kicks in, and you see the sting of rejection reflected through the actors as they separate and pout. The chemistry is palpable, and after a while, you'll begin to fondly recollect your most recent Netflix and chill, or maybe a recent breakup as cuffing season comes to an end.

It's that chemistry that bridges the centuries long gap and makes Songs of Love and War feel so accessible. Monteverdi might have been composing love songs 400 years ago, but they're still painfully relatable and alluring.

SEE IT: Songs of Love and War plays at Hampton Opera Center, 211 SE Caruthers St., portlandopera.org. 7:30 Thursday and Saturday, Feb. 23 and 25. $65.