Opera Philadelphia’s ‘Unholy Wars’ is a beautiful fusion of music, video, and dance

Unholy Wars — a theater work reflecting on the high-carnage of the Crusades of the Middle Ages at Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O23 — promised some uncomfortably revisionist history, but the Saturday opening was mostly a beautiful fusion of music, video, and dance. It was the first of four performances at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre.

Not to be confused with the 2002 John Cooley book of the same title, Unholy Wars is a project devised by Lebanese American tenor Karim Suleyman to challenge the centuries-old negative exoticism of Middle Eastern culture by Western literature. This was spelled out in Suleyman’s program notes, citing specific cases of subtle cultural condescension imposed from the West to the East. The theater piece itself resisted preaching, though Suleyman’s well-rooted intentions were there for those who looked for them.

This cultural quilt was built around Monteverdi’s 1624 miniature opera Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (text based on Tasso’s famous 16th-century poem “Jerusalem Delivered”) that gives a fictionalized account of crusader Tancredi, whose armored battles led him to kill the Saracen woman he loved, unknowingly. Monteverdi was then followed by added arias of deep lamentation, most notably Handel’s classic “Lascia ch’io pianga” — all reestablishing their artistic universality with a celebratory sense of new discovery.

Electronic interludes by Mary Kouyoumjdian might’ve seemed jarring but in fact enhanced the piece’s flow. The opening moments were an arresting fusion of Monteverdi and modern high-tech sound that gave a good sense of how the 11th-century Crusade, 17th-century music, and our 21st century would find a fruitful meeting point.

Under the overall direction of Kevin Newbury, video artist Michael Commendatore created dynamic images that evolved in conjunction with the music, often showing arches and minarets of ancient cities that seemed to move toward the audience as the overall picture grew larger.

Most effective was when the images dissolved into ocean waves or burst into flames in what was an ongoing preoccupation with water, earth, and fire — as the cast communed with those elements.

With the piece’s ritualistic pace and manner, one could sometimes stand back from this rich content to process its meaning, or perhaps be puzzled (pleasantly) over the Ebony Williams choreography, danced by Coral Dolphin.

Fluid and abstract, the dance element elaborated on the moment at hand, but always stayed within the spirit of the piece’s overall package, creating a visual bridge between the distant milieu of the subject matter and modern theater.

The core of the piece is Monteverdi’s music, written at the dawn of the operatic medium, and not often heard in Philadelphia. The music’s highly evolved sense of narrative drama arrives in discrete modules, often explosive ones, that are selflessly fashioned to the needs of the text. It turns melodic, conversational, and highly rhetorical.

It’s pared-down and emotionally direct but has a powerful and visceral language of its own. Originally published in a book of madrigals (yes, madrigals), Il Combattimento feels epic in scope but runs only 20 highly eventful minutes.

The musical’s directness comes most alive with charismatic voices, one being of Philadelphia-based soprano Julianne Baird. The 47-year old Suleyman, with a statuesque presence and distinctive bantamweight tenor voice, brings Monteverdi’s performance to another level. He’s well-seasoned in early music style and has the kind of vocal flexibility that readily accommodates that. His quiver (sometimes implied more than heard) opens up intimate emotional dimensions not always heard in Metropolitan Opera-sized voices.

On Saturday, he sang the music as if he wrote it, accompanied by a seven-member group of period instruments under the direction of Julie Andrijeski.

Just as notable, vocally, was the rich-voiced soprano Raha Mirzadegan in the smaller role of Clorinda. Bass-baritone John Taylor Ward more than held his own amid these strong personalities in his somewhat thankless narrative function.

Only 80 minutes long, Unholy Wars is one of those pieces best appreciated over multiple viewings.

“Unholy Wars” plays Sept. 27, Sept. 30, and Oct. 1, Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St. Tickets $50-$120. operaphila.org, 215-732-8400.

A previous version of this article misrepresented Julianne Baird as a retired singer. She continues to actively perform and has an upcoming show with Choral Arts Philadelphia.