United States Various, Constance: A Confession: Soloists, Hypercube Ensemble / Dmitriy Glivinskiy (conductor). Experiments in Opera, HERE, New York, 16.5.2026. (RP)
Experiments in Opera turned the adage that too many cooks spoil the broth on its head with Constance: A Confession. The creative team of four writers and four composers joined forces to create a funny, edgy tale of a woman with zero scruples and boundless ambition who steps over bodies, both literally and figuratively, on her pathway to success.
The opera was developed through the EIO’s Writers’ Room program which, over the past eight years, has hard-coded collaboration into the company’s DNA. For Constance, the process began when writers Susan Bywaters, Lisa Clair, Sam Norman and Ed Valentine met with EIO’s artist leaders to share ideas about their work. After landing on a storyline, they produced a four-part libretto, each section the work of a single author. Composers Jasmine Galante, Elizabeth Gartman, Mattie Levy and Roger A. Martinez then went to work.
The plot is absurd, but it hits home. Constance is a master storyteller who is remarkably adept at mining the opportunities in today’s highly curated, hyper-positive online world built on radical self-care, soft living and toxic positivity. It is her good fortune that there is always someone who needs her stories to make them feel better about themselves.
Constance is first encountered as a student at the Sheboygan Wisconsin Conservatory of Art. Her rah-rah classmates, Mark and Skylar, are readying the gallery for the opening of a show. Constance comes in without an entry for the exhibit, brushing off their concerns and saying that a true artist cannot be rushed. Upon learning that the chief art critic of The Sheboygan Gazette will be present to judge their works, Constance changes her tune and orders Mark to cut off a finger which she affixes to a whiteboard with duct tape. The critic proclaims it a work of genius and madness: an artist giving the middle finger to the art world.
Constance sets off to conquer New York but ends up living in Bushwick in Brooklyn, without prospects. She learns that a rave review from a small-town newspaper critic is not a ticket to success in the Big Apple. One tarot reading with Madame Esmeralda, and Constance morphs into Lady Constantina of the Rainbow. Her advice works wonders for a newly married couple, Scotti and Marcus. Scotti knows Lady Constantina is a hoax but recognizes her gift for storytelling and gives Constance her business card which reads ‘senior social media strategist with a focus on wellness supplements’.
Like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, Connie C. Constance becomes a corporate wellness guru, influencer and soulpreneur hawking her Rainbow Warrior persona and powers. Her spiel is that she had a near-death experience brought on by all the telltale symptoms that we obsess over, such as dry skin, leaky gut and brittle nails. Connie is transformed into the Rainbow Warrior and a cult is born. She is frustrated that she has a mere 10,000 followers but along comes Marco.
The young man is in a funk, having been dumped for the third time this year by his true soulmate because he is colorblind. Connie sympathetically observes that his skin is pretty dry and that he is dying. The solution to these problems is to join the Rainbow System which he promptly does, handing over his Social Security number and credit card details in the process. In return, he receives shakes in every color of the rainbow and is told to get out there and recruit.
It is starting to dawn on Enid, Connie’s fawning assistance, that her boss is a fraud. She connects with ‘Scarlett the Skeptic’ who is also onto Connie. They concoct a plan to have Connie appear with Scarlett on The Skeptic’s Feed. Before a live audience, Scarlett drinks one of Connie’s shakes, but our heroine is never one to miss an opportunity. She laces the shake with a psychedelic drug that knocks Scarlett out cold. Connie exclaims that Scarlett is being transformed into a Rainbow Warrior in real time, exalting that her number of followers is climbing into the billions.
Three months later, Connie is set to baptize Marco into the world of color with a side of sex. Enid is hurt – she thought she was the special one – but Connie dismisses her with cruel condescension. It dawns on Enid that Scarlett isn’t suspended between life and death in a Rainbow Warrior’s incubation stage but is actually dead. Or, as Connie describes the corpse, an embalmed doll with which Enid has played, too.
The composers linked the four stories together with the same imagination and dexterity as the writers did. Arranged for baritone saxophone, electric guitar, piano, accordion, drum set, vibraphone and triangle, the score is as glib as Constance and just as colorful and chameleon-like. The result is an eclectic, colorful mix of sounds and rhythms that captures the mood of every scene. Surprisingly, the composers stick to the traditional operatic devices of arias, duets and ensembles. Rhythmic interest is a constant, but the composers also have a flair for melody and lyricism straddling classical and pop. For Constance, they have written some fine arias, if not soul-searching at least illuminating. Introspection is not her forte.
Dmitriy Glivinskiy and the Hypercube Orchestra neatly stitch together sounds that range from a school fight song to Lady Constantia’s soul-to-soul talk with Scotti. To say nothing of the more exotic Middle Eastern sounds accompanying Constance’s foray into mysticism and Age of Aquarius rock for Marco’s initiation rites.
Sydney Anderson is a wonderful, zany, rubber-faced comedian who takes a no-holds-barred approach to Constance. You can see her brain at work and the light bulb flashes whenever she smells opportunity, and there is the sardonic gleam in her eyes and smile on her face when she is soaring high or sticking a dagger into someone. Prison, for Constance, is just another speed bump on her trajectory to fame and fortune.
Sishel Claverie also goes for broke as The Enabler, whether in the guise of a student, fortuneteller or disciple. Her wise-cracking art critic is a small-town version of her foul-mouthed Esmeralda, but the evolution from devotion to disillusionment as Enid is quite touching. Zen Wu’s take on Skylar, Scotti and Scarlett is more human-scaled. Her heart-to-heart with Anderson’s Lady Constantia is the emotional high point of the opera. As a comedian, she is the perfect foil for the Rainbow Warrior.
Nathaniel Sullivan distilled gullibility into an art form. His character is listed in the program as The Mark, and he is an easy target for Constance in all of her guises. His zeal to please a fellow student by chopping off his finger was as phenomenal as it was disturbing. Sullivan’s forlorn young husband is transformed into a puppy when Lady Constantia’s advice gives his life purpose. He drank the Kool-Aid of Rainbow Wisdom or, in this case, a shake, until a murder brings him to his senses – or was it the thought of sex with the Rainbow Warrior?
The opera ends with Constance lashing out at her followers whom she accuses of being complicit in all she did. After all, Constance rationalizes, I am not a bad person, just a storyteller, and every story is true if you believe it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that she has a point.
Rick Perdian
Featured Image: Sishel Claverie (Enid), Sydney Anderson (Constance), Nathaniel Sullivan (Mark) © Silin Chen
Cast:
Constance / Lady Constantina of the Rainbow / Connie C. Constance – Sydney Anderson
The Mark aka Mark / Marcus / Marco – Nathaniel Sullivan
The Enabler aka the Critic / Lady Esmeralda / Enid – Sishel Claverie
The Skeptic aka Skylar / Scotti / Scarlett the Skeptic – Zen Wu
Production:
Librettists – Susan Bywaters, Lisa Clair, Sam Norman, Ed Valentine
Composers – Jasmine Galante, Elizabeth Gartman, Mattie Levy, Roger A. Martinez
Director – Shannon Sindelar
Sets – Silin Chens
Lighting – Mary Ellen Stebbins
Costumes – Krista Intranuovo Pineman
Video – David Pym,
Technical director – Jack Woods,
Sound engineer – Nathaniel Butler,
Assistant Director and Choreographer – Celia Krefter
Scenic artist – Thy-Lan Alcalay
Intimacy choreographer – Alexandra Haddad