Randall Wong covered a range of just over three centuries and just over three octaves in his
recital for the Mardi Gras on Friday. While the implicit androgyny of a singer described as a
male soprano, who moves comfortably from baroque bel canto to baritone cabaret-kitsch, might
seem to be playing up to the cross-dressing outrageousness which the Mardi Gras cultivates,
in fact it was Wong's expertise in baroque ornamentation which was most salient here.

In a first half which was devoted largely to the quivering emotionalism and vocal virtuosity
of the 17th century, and with sympathetic accompaniment from harpsichordist Paul Dyer and
cellist Anthea Cottee, Wong's vocal embellishments were stylish and light without being over-mannered or ostentatious. The very high notes of his register are the purest both in tone and
pitch - and in arias by Monteverdi and Purcell, Wong revealed an intelligent expressiveness.

Wong characterised the different vocal styles parodied in Barbara Strozzi's cantata, L'Astratto,
with urbane humour. His agility in Vivaldi's cantata Amor, hai vinto did not have the rapid-fire accuracy of some falsetto singers and was sensitive rather than sensational.

In the second half, Bernstein's Glitter and be Gay was a tour de force of style somewhat parallel to
Strozzi's catalogue of 17th century rhetorical devices, and by taking the last high note
(a C#?) down in the baritone register, Wong indicated for the first time that he is also
comfortable singing down in the basement with the boys.
The cabaret selection in the second half, with aptly deadpan accompaniment from Sally Whitwell,
was amusing: Lieber and Stoller's Humphrey Bogart, William Bolcom's I am a vamp and
Mischa Spoliansky's Masculine/feminine all captured the coy camp without
undue exaggeration.

We'll never know what Queen Victoria would have thought of the use to which Randall Wong has put the toy
theater we call Victorian. These erstwhile home entertainment center seem so much more fun than modern-daymultimedia outposts, but they're very hands-on and labor-intensive. Thus it was that Wong's Household Opera, which played three nights at the Z Space, deployed several singers, musicians and stagehands to tell the story of a toaster's tragic love for an alarm clock. Perhaps this absurdist whimsy would have been a bit too post-modern for Victoria's taste. The fanatic Mr. Wong, a male soprano who alternately sang, conducted and played the harp, concocted his inanimate love story out of the found texts and melodies of luminaries like Lewis Carroll, Edith Sitwell, Stefan Zweig, Satie, Schubert and Schoenberg. He also hand-decorated the theater's proscenium (three feet by four feet) and took considerable care in creating stage pictures through the use of iridescent cellophane and Christmas tree lights. The amazing thing is just how beautiful they were.Two guys in black (Christian Heppinstall and David Zechman) sat on either side of the stage-within-a-stage and embued the characters with life by wiggling them. Kudos to soprano Judith Nelson and tenor Scott Whitaker, who supplied the voices for such things as he evil eggbeater and a devilish trio of condiments: ketchup, mustard and Pink Fluff, an industrial goo unavailable on the West Coast. Unseen musicians (Paul Hale, Susan Harvey, Todd Manley, Janice Negherbon) produced surreal and lilting sounds from a harpsichord, chamber organ, harmonium, marimba, cello, viola and multiple toy pianos.

What did it all mean? The audience's capacity to dream with its eyes wide open is the single greatest force in
theater. Besieged by technologies that leave increasingly little or nothing to the imagination, we tend to forget how infinitely pleasurable are those forms dismissed as archaic. Visionary throwbacks like Randall Wong, with the aesthetic courage to share a bizarre vision, deserve all the encouragement they get.