Scraps Of Mind

Archive for the ‘Opera’ Category

Posted by karooch on

February 16, 2010

Culture in the Colonies

There’s a great scheme going on with some of our independent movie theatres over the last couple of years where they do direct live broadcasts of operas from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

I’ve been going for the last 18 months and the experience is fantastic. Not only do you get a fabulous high definition up-close-and-personal viewing experience of the production (and The Met productions are seriously over the top), but you also get to see what’s going on behind the curtain when the scenery is being changed between acts. And that has to be seen to be believed. And on top of that, the whole thing is presented by a leading opera star, such as Placido Domingo or Renee Fleming, who catch the lead performers as they leave the stage at the end of an act and chat with them.

A couple of theatres in Melbourne subscribe to this broadcast but my venue of choice is The Sun Theatre in Yarraville; a beautifully restored art deco theatre with intimately sized theatres and comfy armchair style seating. The last opera production was a couple of weeks ago. Bizet’s Carmen, a well known story and a truly magnificent production. And because it’s broadcast live and has plenty of close-up camera work, you get to see all the little prop malfunctions and how the performers deal with them in such a way that the people in the ‘real’ theatre would not actually see.

Just recently The Sun have branched out in this area and are including ballet performances from the Russian ballet as well as plays from the West End of London. These aren’t broadcast live but they’re recorded live and are presented within two weeks of the actual performance so there’s a feeling of currency about them.

I went to my first play on Saturday: Nation by Mark Ravenhill based on a book by Terry Pratchett (nothing to do with the Discworld Series of which I am a huge fan). It’s a production from the National Theatre, London.

“A parallel world, 1860. Two teenagers thrown together by a tsunami that has destroyed Mau’s village and left Daphne shipwrecked on his South Pacific island, thousands of miles from home. One wears next to nothing, the other a long white dress; neither speaks the other’s language; somehow they must learn to survive. As starving refugees gather, Daphne delivers a baby, milks a pig, brews beer and does battle with a mutineer. Mau fights cannibal Raiders, discovers the world is round and questions the reality of his tribe’s fiercely patriarchal gods. Together they come of age, overseen by a foul-mouthed parrot, as they discard old doctrine to forge a new Nation.”

I wasn’t sure how I would go watching a stage play in a movie format. And it took me about 15 minutes to get my head into the right sort of place. But once I was there I truly enjoyed the experience.

The production mixed projected film and puppetry in an unlikely combination with the ‘organic’ performance in a way that worked wonderfully. Speaking as someone who likes a story to be delivered pretty straight and not given an ‘arty’ treatment I was a little nervous of how this was all going to come across. But it worked brilliantly.

I’m always fascinated by stage productions and how so many different places, moods, times etc. can be created ‘live’ in front of your eyes without all the ‘trickery’ that’s available with cameras. The Nation production was a minimal scenery production (not usually my favourite option) and performed on a revolving stage that centred on a dome that represented the Asia Pacific region of a globe of the world, and doubled as the deck of a ship and a South Sea island.

All the performers did a wonderful job and the script explored some interesting corners of the human psyche, whilst still being a fun and entertaining story.

Because they had only received the file from London that day, the Sun team hadn’t had a chance to give it a run through to test it and sure enough, we had a couple of glitches. We lost the last couple of minutes before the Interval and, more importantly, the curtain came down two and a half minutes before the end. Things were looking ugly in the theatre when the management came to apologise for what had happened and said that if we could hang on for about 10 minutes they’d get it sorted and we’d get our ending. Then they gave us all a complementary pass to sooth ruffled feathers and all was well.

So if you’re fortunate enough to live in or around London and you’re looking for something a bit different (without being off the wall) to see, I can highly recommend Nation.

And for everyone else, why not check out your local independent cinema and see if they participate in this worldwide broadcast scheme. It’s a great way to try out something different without buying expensive tickets.

Madam Butterfly

Furthering our Opera Education, Allan and I returned to the Plenty Ranges Theatre on Saturday to take in another Melbourne Opera production. This time front row seats for Madam Butterfly by Puccini.

In a word…Sensational!

Basically the story line for this opera is that of Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly), a 15 year old Japanese geisha who marries an American naval officer, Pinkerton. But this is not the story of two star crossed lovers. Pinkerton is an arrogant macho ratbag who thinks the local culture is humorous and trivial (typical colonial attitude I guess). He buys his bride from a marriage broker on the understanding that he can rescind the contract any time he likes. Unfortunately Butterfly doesn’t realise this and thinks the marriage is for real. Seems it was love at first sight for her and she was prepared to renounce her culture and her religion for him. Her family reject her and cast her out for this and she is dishonoured.

After having had his fun, Pinkerton sails off with his ship and three years later Butterfly still hasn’t heard from him and her money is almost gone. But she has complete faith that he will return. She rejects a new bridegroom that the marriage broker tries to foist on her. The American Consul tries to tell her that Pinkerton is not returning. She refuses to accept this and produces a son which Pinkerton doesn’t know about.

At last Pinkerton’s ship arrives in the harbour and Butterfly is beside herself with excitement and prepares for his arrival. She sits up through the night but he doesn’t show and finally she goes to get some sleep in the morning. Pinkerton arrives, together with his All American Bride intending to take his son away with them back to the US. When the insensitive clod realises how devastated Butterfly will be, he bravely dumps the job of telling her on to the Consul and runs away.

Butterfly finds out what his plan is and says she’ll give up her son if Pinkerton comes for him in person. Then she takes the dagger with which her father committed hara kiri and removes her ‘inconvenient’ self from the scene. Pinkerton arrives to find her dead whilst her son sits in his old rocking chair waving an American flag and wearing a blindfold.

Innocence Kit by Lorene Hill. Heartsong embellishments by Amy Cheeseman

Normally I’m not a big fan of the overly emotional love story, but this really got to me. The set was simple but effective, the characters were strongly played and the emotional tension was there throughout for me. And to top it off, Puccini writes a mean score.

Suzanne Donald gave a convincing performance as the shy 15 year old Butterfly, maturing to a young mother but still with the innocence of inexperience. And Stephen Smith, who played Don Giovanni last year, is disturbingly good at playing arrogant ratbag males. So good in fact that when he came out for the curtain call the audience didn’t know whether to clap or to boo him. So they did both!

A wonderful night’s entertainment and I think I can safely say I’m no longer an Opera Virgin. But this is my third opera experience in less that a year. So does that mean I’ve become an Opera Buff?!?

Posted by Karen on

December 4, 2006

Turandot…or, “Mastermind: Chinese style”

Dear gentle and cultured reader, you may recall a post I wrote a few months ago called ‘No longer an Opera Virgin’ where I went to my first Opera performance. This was Don Giovanni and was sung in English rather than Italian. And although I really enjoyed it I felt that I should reserve judgement on whether I am really an Opera Lover until I went to a full blown production sung in Italian.

Well Saturday was it!

I met up with the girlfriends that I go to the ballet with and off we went to the Opera Australia performance of Turandot at the State Theatre.

The storyline for this opera revolves around a beautiful but callous and cold hearted Chinese Princess who plays mind games with her suitors. They have to guess three riddles and when they fail then it’s off with their head. Presumably this serves to lift the mental average of the male population but you’d have to agree it’s a tad drastic.

Enter the hero Calaf, who takes one look at her, falls in love (presumably with her face rather than her personality) and immediately signs up for her quiz show. He wins and because she is such a poor loser, he offers her a deal whereby if she can guess his name in 24 hours he’ll forfiet his life (what kind of a dumb offer is that?). So our Royal Ray of Sunshine grabs the little slave girl who’s in love with Calaf and tortures her to get his name. The Slave Girl kills herself in case she weakens. I’m mentally screaming “he’s not worth it girl”. Then the Hero tells the Princess his name, kisses her and she is smitten by love and we head off to the big romantic finale.

Having given you that facetious synopsis I must also tell you that it was a wonderful production. The music and singing were sensational, the sets and costumes were gorgeous and the overall vibe was totally fantastic. The production was directed by Graeme Murphy who is one of Australia’s best choreographers. And his use of the stage and the large body of chorus members was a piece of visual art.

Our seats were in the circle which was absolutely perfect as the surtitles were at eye level and it was easy to glance at them to keep track of what was going on without them being distracting. So whilst, unlike Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, I wasn’t in danger of peeing my pants, I did enjoy it enormously and will look forward to the opportunity of seeing another Opera. Not only have I well and truly lost my Opera Virginity, but it looks like I’m well on the way to becoming an Opera Lover.

And yes, it finished with the fat lady singing!