Vagabond Opera

It’s going to get Gypsy at Jazzbones Saturday
by Angela Jossy
Nov 08, 2007

A night with Vagabond Opera is a plunge down the rabbit hole into dirty European Gypsy immigrant love. Only in this rabbit hole, instead of Alice’s encounter with a phobic albino bunny and a feline with daily tooth whitening appointments, this trip includes a flame-masticating dancer with a hula hoop of fire and an abdominally flexible expert in Raks Sharki. The Vagabond Opera show even includes the occasional act of on-cue violence, which everyone knows is essential to any modern form of 21st-century entertainment.

The music is totally uninhibited by borders or anything else. It’s Yiddish, it’s jazz, it’s Arabic, it’s Balkan, it’s klezmer, it’s cabaret, it’s Ukrainian folk-punk, it’s Neo-Classical opera, and it’s all performed with the panache of a pseudo-circus ringleader with a handlebar mustache and a bowler hat who happens to be a flawless operatic tenor who can hold a robust note for a full 20 seconds. In fact, I bet he could read aloud that last sentence in a single breath.

[Jazzbones, Saturday, Nov. 10, 6:30 p.m., all ages, $8-$10, 2803 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.396.9169]

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