Tonight They're Gonna Rock You

Rock opera never sounded like this before.
The East Village Opera Company kicks off the Fringe Festival tonight with a concert that melds opera with rock n’ roll anthems. It’s “La Bohème” meets “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Mozart meets Meatloaf.
Vocalist Tyley Ross says the group seeks to make “these unbelievable songs more accessible and believable for people who don’t listen to opera.” At the same time, the Opera Company wants to introduce classical music buffs to a whole new genre.
Ross, who founded the group with composer Peter Kiesewalter, shared his thoughts on beauty, accessibility and the unholy union of opera and rock n’ roll late last month. Here’s some insight that didn’t make the printed page:

On opera music:
“This music was the pop music of the day. It wasn’t trying to be an elevated art form.”

“They’re songs that we just fall in love with. We don’t have to dig too deep because there’s so many incredible gems that you don’t have to listen to opera records nonstop. They’re the ones that break my heart.”

“I’ve got this flighty notion that … we’ve inherited these songs as much as we’re inherited anything from our ancestors physically. They’re (part of) our DNA.”

On Giacomo Puccini’s “Nessun dorma”:
“When I heard it – not as the background to a commercial, but by itself while I was driving – I thought, ‘Why is this song making me feel more alive than any song I’ve ever listened to?’ I pulled off the road and listened to that song eight more times.”

On opera singing:
“I have no desire to sing like an opera singer…. I don’t believe it to be the bedrock of all vocal functions.”
“It’s the vocal version of the caber toss … an extraordinary physical feat.”

On the East Village Opera Company:
“We’re just a cover band, actually … We borrow and steal from a great many of the greatest bands we know.”

Catch the East Village Opera Company in action tonight at 8 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center, 1 Grand Ave. in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are $15 to $40.
For more information, call 781-7009 or visit the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival Web site.

-- Sarah L.