Short as Roman emperor Eliogabalo’s reign was, the world sighed in relief when it was over.
I felt the same way about Gotham Chamber Opera’s performance Friday of Francesco Cavalli’s “Eliogabalo.” It was a shocker in exactly the wrong sense — an inept presentation from a company with a reputation for wit and refinement.
The real-life Eliogabalo — who, historians say, narrowly edges out Caligula for the “most decadent” title — was appointed emperor at 14 and assassinated only four years later. Legend has it that during his reign he married no less than five times and had an interesting hobby: turning tricks as a transgender hooker.
In the 1668 opera’s uncredited and sanitized libretto, the emperor’s been turned into a Don Juan type intent on seducing noblewomen, much to the dismay of their husbands and brothers.
Director James Marvel restored a hint of sexual ambiguity in his updated take on the tale. Eliogabalo minced onstage in torn fishnet hose and a bedazzled jockstrap, ogling leather-clad guards.
The concept suits the show’s offbeat venue, the Lower East Side burlesque club the Box. But since everyone else in the production, including the “noble” Romans, behaved like refugees from the 1990s club circuit, the comedy-drama came off like a “Remember the Limelight” theme party.
This self-conscious naughtiness — including a quartet of topless dancers shimmying through scene after scene — distracted from a solid though uninspired musical performance.
Christopher Ainslie nailed Eliogabalo’s lean and sociopathic look, but the countertenor’s voice sounded wan and inexpressive in the Box’s dry acoustics. Not so mezzo Emily Grace Righter: As the emperor’s straight-arrow friend Alessandro, she sang a fluent and moving version of the lament “Misero, cosi và.” And bass-baritone Brandon Cedel, as the bumbling pimp Nerbulone, capped a snappy patter aria by doing “the worm” down the aisle and out the back of the auditorium.
From the theorbo — a sort of oversize antique guitar — Grant Herreid led a seven-piece orchestra in a flexible account of the heavily cut score.
Sadly, what remained was anything but a Roman holiday.