Charming, clever and delicious

Mixed Precipitation is now in their third season of producing "opera" in community gardens. The clever productions written and directed by Scotty Reynolds with extensive collaboration feature real opera sung in Italian or French with English and Spanish narration, juxtaposed with contemporary music and dialog in English. The company finds clever ways to add amusing "supertitles" to the non-English numbers. One feature is that the audience is fed throughout the performance with delightful organic tidbits prepared by master chef Nick Schneider from fresh garden produce.

Alcina's Island is wonderfully entertaining. This somewhat obscure Handel opera (Alcina) about an enchantress who lures men to her island and turns them into animals or garden ornaments when she gets tired of them, is a musical and theatrical delight. The conceit of this production is that Alcina's Island is a truck stop to which she lures hunky road warriors. The food was great--my favorites being a salted watermelon canape with goat cheese and pickled ramps on buttered bread.

The singer/actors were winning in the extreme and the audience laughed and ate and enjoyed the music. Kids were especially delighted, and even the dog someone brought along seemed to enjoy the show. There is no admission charged, but donations are taken. This is really a don't miss show, absolutely unique. You won't see anything like it anywhere.