Rocker Billy Corgan is anything but one note. For decades, he’s poured what he describes as a strong Midwest work ethic into seemingly endless ventures, from his 1990s rock group, The Smashing Pumpkins, to a professional wrestling league, an artisanal tea shop in the suburbs, a poetry career and even Bozo the Clown tributes.
So perhaps it comes as no surprise that he’s turning the 30th anniversary of the Pumpkins’ career-defining record “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” into something unexpected: opera. This week, Corgan’s long-teased collaboration with the Lyric Opera of Chicago will be revealed, finally answering a burning question for both opera loyalists and Pumpkins superfans alike: What exactly is this show?
The closest format comparison, according to some of the team involved, is perhaps Mozart’s “Requiem,” which packs a full chorus and orchestra on stage. “A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness” will do that, too, and include visuals, couture costumes and a rockstar in the show.
When conductor and composer James Lowe was first approached about building an orchestral score based on the massive rock album — known for hits like “Tonight, Tonight,” “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and “1979” — he wanted to know: Would this mirror Metallica’s 1999 collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony when the band played on stage with classical musicians?
On that front, Corgan issued a clear no. “This is not a rock goes opera or opera goes rock,” he said at Lyric’s season announcement in March, when the project was first publicized.
“I’ve seen where other artists in my ilk do that, and I’ve always found it uncomfortable,” Corgan said. “Because it doesn’t really pay tribute to the beautiful music that’s made here, so that’s what I’m after.”
Instead, Corgan has helped to create a true classical concert, featuring four operatic soloists, plus Lyric’s full orchestra and chorus on stage. Corgan, 58, will also appear on some of the songs, all of which have been completely reimagined as symphonic works. That means no guitar or drum parts.
The result is an experiment, which stands to be mutually beneficial. Corgan gets to spread his artistic wings even further. And Lyric gets to tap into a well of music fans who may never otherwise enter the grand downtown opera house. These days, taking risks in order to fill seats is the name of the game for arts organizations, perhaps especially classical companies, as ticket sales have been sluggish following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this month, another Chicago classical institution, the Joffrey Ballet, collaborated with choreographer Chanel DaSilva on a world-premiere performance that put the band The Main Squeeze on stage with the dancers. And, the Goodman Theatre is working with iconoclast rocker David Byrne on an immersive theater experience next spring.
But, in trying something new, companies risk alienating their longtime season ticket holders, who often like to see the classics like “La bohème” or “Carmen.”
Corgan — himself an opera lover — has those music fans in mind, too.
“This is really to celebrate the compositional aspect of the work and to make sure that everybody that comes to the Lyric, from the patrons on down, really enjoys the complexity and the beauty of the work that I created,” Corgan said in March. “A good composition, whether it’s by the Beatles or Gershwin, is transferable to other media or mediums. So that’s what we’re going to do here, is really create a beautiful night of music.”
But the journey from chart-topping rock album to a symphonic evening required a feat of creativity. It also required throwing out much of the embedded perception of the 1995 album, a “stew” of metal, pop, grunge and alternative rock, as Joe Shanahan, the owner of Metro and Smartbar, describes it.
In total, “Mellon Collie” featured 28 songs. In the reinterpreted version at Lyric, there will be 19 songs, and not all will be played in the same order as on the album. However, Lowe, who orchestrated and arranged the music for the stage, said he hopes the variety of musical styles and emotions on the album remains intact.
Early on, Corgan gave Lowe the green light to transform the songs completely. To put them in a new key, a new tempo, a new emotional register. Over a period of months, the two exchanged emails. Corgan would send a list of adjectives, describing his vision for any given track and Lowe would send back demos, some of which he was sure Corgan would hate. Instead, he was met with encouragement to keep going.
Some tracks, like “Galapogos,” were easier to adapt, said Lowe, a New York-based, Grammy-nominated conductor, arranger and director, who has worked extensively in both classical and musical theater.
Heavy rock songs such as “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and “Jellybelly” presented more of a challenge. “It was like, what do I do with this? How do I translate that to an orchestra without it sounding kind of silly or cringey?” Lowe, 58, asked himself. “And [“Jellybelly”] was one of the songs that departed quite a bit.”
Lowe, who has worked with the Lyric before on productions of “West Side Story” and “Oklahoma,” said he wanted to write music that matched the talent of performers on stage.
“These are virtuoso players,” Lowe said. “There’s nothing that they can’t handle. So that was really exciting for me to know that I’m writing for people of that caliber.”
Baritone Edward Parks, a soloist on the project, said he’s not looking to recreate Corgan’s signature sound. “We’ve had some conversations about how they want this to be sung and they don’t want us trying to make our voices do anything other than what they normally do,” Parks said.
Parks, 42, also lives in Highland Park, the same North Shore suburb where Corgan and his wife, Chloé Mendel, and their children reside. Mendel, along with her father, runs the couture fashion brand, House of Gilles, which will outfit Corgan and the soloists for the show. Parks said there’s a sort of hometown pride in the upcoming performance.
“My neighbors all know I’m an opera singer, but I don’t think I’ve ever had more people say, ‘We’re coming to the show,’” he said. “I think there’s a real excitement around here.”
As of last week, Lyric Opera said all seven shows are nearly sold out. While this run won’t be extended, given that Lyric’s mainstage will soon turn over to Joffrey’s “Nutcracker,” Corgan has said he hopes to take the show on the road someday. No touring plans have yet been announced.
Chicagoan Zoie Reams, a mezzo-soprano soloist on the project, hopes other companies take similar bets on fresh, new works.
“I think that’s how you tap into people caring about what goes on at the opera,” Reams, 33, said. “If we pique 10% of the people’s interests who come to these shows, who might want to come back or experience a classical piece, I think that’s a win.”
Since its inception, the music of “Mellon Collie” has shaken up genres. When the Pumpkins were working on it in the mid-90s, Corgan said the band was told the project would be “career suicide.” But then, like now, Corgan had something to prove.
“We were being compared to many other bands of the ’90s, what was then called the grunge movement, and we felt we were operating with a different level of sophistication,” Corgan said in the spring. “So my petulant way of answering the critics of the time was to do this wide-ranging double album. And it became our biggest-selling work.”
Spawning five singles, the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and earned the band seven Grammy Award nominations and nine MTV Music Video Awards. Rolling Stone ranked it among the best albums of the decade. Shanahan, of Metro, who was an early Pumpkins supporter, said the group “really stretched the creative rubber band.”
“Billy, in a way, he knocked on the door, and nobody answered, and then he just pushed the door open and he said, ‘I’m here. What are you gonna do with me now?’” Shanahan said. “I think that bodes well for what he’s doing even with the Lyric Opera, maybe a little gentler.”
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and culture reporter at WBEZ.