From the wordless to the wordy, these short worldly works– all three directly or indirectly reflecting the story of race in America; all three intriguing examples of digital theater — were offered for free during the twelve-day run of the eleventh annual Prototype Festival of opera and musical theater, which ends today. The festival once again expanded the concept of both opera and musical theater beyond normal recognition – and these three played their part in this.

“Swann,” is arguably the most traditional opera of these three, but only because of the style of singing.  It is billed as a “digital aria” about William Dorsey Swann,  a  Black man who called himself “queen of drag,” organized drag balls in 19th century Washington D.C., and was arrested in 1888  for female impersonation – reportedly the first such documented arrest in the United States. 

If Swann’s story is not spelled out in a conventionally linear way, composer Tamar-kali, librettist Carl Hancock Rux and director James Blaszko pack a lot into its five minutes. 

There are two alternating narratives – two voices, each accompanied by  separate (although sometimes overlapping) images and words. 

In one, we see a white man (KB Lash) taking off his black gloves, sitting on a table, and typing on an old-fashioned typewriter the words that countertenor Kenneth Alston Jr. is singing: “Hell of iniquity/House without sanctity/All manner of sin/Charged against him” – until he takes his policeman’s hat off the table, and becomes a shadowy figure in the dark, presumably on his way to make the arrest.

In the other narrative, we see three Black men, including Swann (Marcus Zebra), getting dressed for drag and then attending a drag ball, which is accompanied by a voice (Rux’s) saying (not singing)  words that are projected in cursive onto the screen: “Swathed in coats of fur, I entered to applause.” The final image is of the three men lying together in feathery ecstascy, accompanied by the (spoken and projected) words: “Men will thus malign/What they do not understand.”

“Vodalities” is a 16-minute concert, videotaped a year ago in a church in Baltimore, that’s a wondrous soundscape demonstrating the  musicality of the human voice as explored in contemporary times by pioneering (and largely Black American) vocalists.  The piece focuses specifically on the “vocal modalities, or ‘vodalities’ of Breath Art, Vocal Percussion & Beatboxing,” according to Dominic “Shodekeh” Talifero, who composed the piece to be performed with Sō Percussion, a quartet of percussionists (Adam Sliwinski, Eric Cha-Beach, Jason Treuting, Josh Quillen). In other words, much of “Vodalities,” subtitled “Paradigms of Consciousness for the Human Voice,” goes beyond using the human voice in novel ways; it transcribes the sound initially created by vocalists to various percussion instruments. 

Shodekeh divides “Vodalities” into three movements, each with its own title card:

I. The Universality of Breath Art” (Dedicated to Bobby McFerrin)
II. “The Genealogy of Vocal Percussion” (Dedicated to Ella Fitzgerald) 
III: “The Mathematics of Beatboxing” (Dedicated to Doug E. Fresh: The Original Human Beatbox.) 

In “Whiteness,” the longest of the three at 28 minutes, Paul Pinto riffs widely, wildly, playfully and pointedly on the subject, using chants in 4-40-part harmon, rants,  baffling digressions and original songs, in a video of comically cutting edge graphic design and animation (by Kameron Neal.) We often see him as a series of floating heads, or dancing figures bombarded by falling words.

Here’s what we see when Pinto says “some people believe America is a white space.”

Here is what we see after a long section that begins: “I’m not 100 percent sure what whiteness is. It seems easier to define what it means to be non-white. To be non-white is to share common enemies”:

In “Narrative Song” he recounts an encounter with a police officer, delivered deliciously rapid-fire and rhythmic, that is both tuneful and funny, and thoroughly theatrical, while making its point clearly, at one point working into the lyrics a Stanford report that Hispanics and Black people “are pulled over more often than whites, right? Tail lights in Stanford go out as often.Just let me off with a warning”

“This is a nation of rules. Your registration and license. And don’t act a fool”

Be cool. Be cool, be cool. I’m just gonna reach very slowly. For the glove compartment

 “Don’t have illusions of grandeur Cuz you ain’t a threat!”

Now I’m upset cuz why ain’t I a threat. I could swear that I’m sweating my brown off. Am I not  brown enough?