Eric Stern and Portland’s Vagabond Opera

Performance modeled on Shabbat service

By Polina Olsen

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Part carnival-barker, part cabaret master-of-ceremonies, Eric Stern got the crowd moving July 19 in Portland's Fernhill Park.

In fact, since founding the Vagabond Opera in 2002, Stern and his Portland-based band have brought their eclectic mix of klezmer, Weimar cabaret, Balkan and Paris HotJazz to audiences ranging from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to coastal towns in Portugal.

This night, the group dressed in top-hats, feathered bowler hats and mustard-colored vests. Face-paint and elaborate mustaches recalled New York Vaudeville or 1920’s Paris. Stern’s off-beat background contributed to the mix of classically trained musicians, 13 languages and neo-cabaret.

“My parents started and were part of a cooperative that ran an anarcho-syndicalist bookstore,” Stern said about his childhood in Philadelphia. “It was in sort of a basement and you walked down the stairs. There were shelves and shelves of radical history.”

Stern preferred counter-culture comics like Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and the racks of used records he frequently borrowed. His grandmother’s background in Yiddish theater also greatly influenced his taste in music.

“When she was much younger she performed at the Walnut Street and Arch Theaters in Philadelphia,” said Stern. “She was also a dancer.”

Despite (or because of) his radical upbringing, Stern gravitated toward opera and began formal training after graduating high school. He joined an opera company and studied in Paris. Then, his search for identity began.

“The world of opera, it’s a Western European world, which is fine. But, at some point I realized I’m something else. My family is very Jewish but not religious, and I think there’s a human need. At some point I began searching.”

Stern started studying with Jewish Renewal Rabbi Marsha Praeger.

“And, I started learning about the music that goes along with it,” he said.

Now he models performances after Shabbat services and uses what he calls a Talmudic approach to music.

“A rabbi in some ways is a performer,” he said during an interview at his North Portland home. “Marsha started by bringing people together and then bringing them to this other level. Before you go to the next place you come down a little bit. That’s how I put together a set list. If I start with something familiar and safe, I can move to something unfamiliar, but then I’ll go back to something more familiar. It’s about shaping a ritual.”

Stern opened an opera score covered with penciled notes to demonstrate his next point.

“It looks like a Torah where you have notes on the side and notes on the notes,” he explained. “When you learn an opera you translate words and pronounce them before you go further. I learn as much as I can—where it came from, the context, what every word means.”

Fernhill Park was packed for the summer evening’s concert. Hundreds watched from their spots on the grass, while parents and children danced around the stage.

“Hey. Mademoiselle, are you ready for your next song?” Stern asked the vocalist as he introduced an Edith Piaf song. “Un, deux, trois,” he said, and the music began. Next came a Macedonian line dance and a group formed a semi-circle.

“If you can’t follow the rhythm you have permission to just move your hands,” Stern told the crowd.

It’s the largest audience we’ve seen at a Fernhill Park concert, the Parks and Recreation announcer said during the break.

As Stern says, “Why does opera always have to be in a concert hall with scenery?”

For more information on the Vagabond Opera visit www.vagabondopera.com.