The Wire

"We did add a love interest. I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic."

by Peter Burwasser

Journalists know it: Truth is stranger than fiction. It's a good operating principle for plotting an opera, too. Just ask Ronald Vigue, who is in the midst of composing one based on a legendary character from his hometown of Niagara Falls, N.Y. His librettist is Albert Innaurato, the South Philly-born playwright who made his fame with the Broadway hit Gemini.

The Great Blondin was a wire walker active in the years just before the Civil War. His most spectacular bit will be re-created in the opera, in a scene that will be performed in a workshop version this week as part of the Fringe Festival. Vigue describes the action: "Blondin performs his famous French Cook feat, where, dressed like a chef, he walks the highwire with a contraption that enables him to cook omelettes, and then lower them to VIPs on the Maid of the Mist, far below the wire in the Niagara River. Talk about stage direction!"

The story is fleshed out with some major figures of the time, including a young journalist by the name of Samuel Clemens (the future Mark Twain) and the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII). The Prince visited Niagara Falls in 1860, and became friendly enough with Blondin to invite him back to England to wire walk across the Thames. Blondin eventually settled there, in an estate he christened Niagara. True facts all! There is one deviation from history, in the name of classic opera convention. "We did add a love interest. She appears later in the opera — I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic."

Both the music and the plot are imbued with what Vigue calls simultaneous dualities. "Blondin performs death-defying acts, but he doesn't realize that he is basically a clown up on a wire." Musically, the story invites Vigue to utilize a favorite natural inspiration, the sound of water. He's not sure how this will be manifested in the workshop presentation, but the potential is intriguing. Future audiences may be handed galoshes at the door.

(p_burwasser@citypaper.net)