The Chicago Stage Review liked The Hunchback Variations Opera so much that a second reviewer has weighed in with a second rave review.

J. Scott Hill writes:

“…The Hunchback Variations Opera is a modern masterpiece.

“The premise of The Hunchback Variations Opera is like the beginning of a joke told at a Mensa meeting. Beethoven (who is deaf) and Quasimodo (who is deaf) hold a series of panel discussions about their failed attempts to create a unique sound that neither of them could hear anyway (because they’re deaf)… This is one level of the genius of playwright/librettist Mickle Maher: combining incompatible elements in ways that are absurdly plausible, and readily accessible to a broad audience.

“Enter the musical magnificence of Mark Messing. This is not Maher and Messing’s first dance together; notably, they provided the script and the score for Redmoon Theater’s signature show, The Cabinet. Messing’s score for two voices, piano, and cello allows for the interpretive power of these four voices to be fully realized without the fetters of over-orchestration. There are the clear influences here of Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, and Philip Glass, without seeming derivative. Pianist Tim Lenihan and cellist Paul Ghica are less like musicians and more like puppeteers, making their instruments sing and emote in voice and in silence.

“George Andrew Wolff’s… tenor is round and full and robust.

“Larry Adams’s bass is sonorous yet subdued. He is pitch perfect in delivering what becomes increasingly cynical counterpoint to Wolff’s useless persistence.

“The Hunchback Variations Opera is funny and frustrating and absurd and poignant. The Hunchback Variations Opera is the most unlikely confluence of heterogeneous incompatibilities to ever work perfectly together onstage. Without doubt, The Hunchback Variations Opera is the DO NOT MISS production of the year in Chicago.

4 STARS

Full review here.