Sex and the Bible: The Opera

You may not learn this in Sunday School, but the Bible contains some pretty racy stuff. Using innocuous phrases like "to know" or "to lie with" someone, the Bible carries stories of incest, passion, and well, sex. Lots of sex.

Opera composer Mark Alburger saw the potential on this aspect of the Good Book, and so begat his latest work, called: Sex and the Bible: The Opera, running through this weekend at San Francisco's Community Music Center.

Reporter Bridget Huber has more.

NOTE: for any parents planning to click “Play” on this web story -- unless you want to have that talk right now, you might want to put on your headphones.

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BRIDGET HUBER: It’s a story of lust, betrayal and revenge. It’s not reality TV -- it’s the Good Book.

MARK ALBURGER: This is after Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s left with his two daughters and there are no men left. And the daughters say, “Come, let us make our father drunk and we will lie with him so that our race will not die out upon earth.” This is the first daughter.

That’s composer Mark Alburger. 

ALBURGER: There's so much sex in the Bible, we couldn't even get through the book of Genesis. 

Alburger’s new opera, “Sex and the Bible,” spotlights the scripture’s racy side.

ALBURGER: Abraham makes a covenant with God, and the deal is, he's got to get circumcised as an adult. So I thought it was important to write excessively beautiful music while these poor sods are getting circumcised. 

Don’t expect any dusty desert, burlap robes or gladiator sandals. “Sex and the Bible” is set backstage at a Las Vegas burlesque club. Performers wear skin-tight body suits and take turns on the stage’s two stripper poles, says Baritone Nathaniel Marken.

NATHANIEL MARKEN: It’s the presumption that a bunch of Vegas types decided to tell bible stories with song. There’s boas laying around, there’s lingerie… 

It’s a far cry from what they teach in Sunday School.

MARKEN: We learn the basic parable we’re supposed to take away from the stories, but in terms of the nitty-gritty messiness that’s really in the Old Testament, it tends to be glossed over when the stories are told. There’s a lot of layers and subtext there that we flesh out--no pun intended--and play with.

ALBURGER: So I suppose the orgasm is a scene change, right? We measure this tome in orgasms: it’s another orgasm, it’s another scene. Bernstein was big on that, right? If the music doesn't give me an etcetera, it's not worth it. 

Alburger grew up Catholic and says he has huge respect for the Bible. Everything—the incest, the wife swapping, the prostitution—it’s all straight out of scripture. But seeing Alburger’s opera is little like reading a steamy romance novel, where you flip ahead to the juicy bits.

ALBURGER: It is nothing but the Bible. When people ask me, “Is it reverent? Is it respectful?" Well, it’s certainly light-hearted, and it’s fun. Like Martin Luther, the guy who started the reformation, said about music in general, he said, “Why should the devil get all the good tunes?” There was this implication that we should have some fun, too. 

This is the story of Jacob. He’s got a lot of wives. He’s got four wives and they sort of have a baby-producing contest. But first, he’s got to meet his wives and he really falls in love with Rachel at the well.

So basically, Sex and the Bible is this frolic through the book of Genesis upholding the human spirit. That, despite the fact that these stories come down to us from 2000 years ago, they had all of our faults, all of our passions, and they were just like us.

Bridget Huber is a student reporter from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.