SPECTACULAR

A night at the Met Opera, seeing Rigoletto, left me impressed, and also wondering what specifically it is that opera does. This production, reset and reimagined by accomplished Broadway director John Mayer in 1960 Las Vegas, possesses, fittingly, loads of visual razzle dazzle. There are sumptuous silk and sequined costumes, and flashy, majestic sets by Christine Jones.

The only other operas I’ve seen at the Met were both directed by Franco Zefferelli, and each left me feeling as if a distant world were unfolding below me on the round stage of the opera house. In Carmen a medieval Italian village came alive with beggars, peasants and farmers, and a donkey and a horse, as the performers carried on among them. The effect was stagey, but this village had its own texture and rhythms; it was a real place.

Throughout Rigoletto I felt as if I were seeing a Broadway spectacular designed by skilled professionals. The conventions of popular theater certainly brought the story to life: the allover carpet stood telegraphically for the inside of a casino, the sleazy red miasmic glow a strip club, and the slashing neon lights a storm. The actors used broad gestures to communicate, borrowing from sitcoms. One actor dies while emerging from an elevator, and the doors open and close automatically, again and again, on her stiff corpse.

The music, iconic, is performed expressively, particularly by tenor Vittorio Grigolo as the Duke. But it feels as if it has been dropped into the elaborate sets and staging, rather than resting at the heart of the performance. For opera, isn’t that the inverse of how it should be? One expects that the songs will carry the story, and then carry one away.

Photo by Meghan Duffy, Met Opera Production Department.

September 07, 2019 by Nalina Moses

ALL DOLLED UP

The Chanel Spring 2016 couture show was formally rigorous: a parade of 120 suits and gowns executed in muted gold tones with jewel-like embellishments. The outfits were unified in their quiet opulence, and in their allegiance to the classic Chanel silhouette: a slim bottom with a top cut away at the neck and the waist. The models sported identical low rolled buns, high curved-heel wedges, and Cleopatra eyeliner, a look that was part Dovima and part Princess Leia.

But the fashion was upstaged by the scenery. The show’s stated theme was ecology and it was presented inside the Gran Palais on a set with lawns, trees, a three-story wood cabana, and blank blue backdrops standing for cloudless sky. The cabana’s unadorned wood slat construction felt vaguely “ecological” and very, very modern. Its tidy construction sat in perfect contrast to the majestic arching steel ribs of the building above.

Models emerged from the cabana one by one and circled the lawn in a stoned robotic shuffle. The fringes, beading and brooches on their dresses bobbed like wings and antennae. Mica Arganaraz paraded solo, at the end, in a fitted bridal gown and hoodie encrusted with white beads. She skimmed the walkways, slowed by the the heavy train of the dress, like a swan.

For the finale all sixty models gathered inside the cabana as its front panels folded and flipped open, simultaneously, slowly, like so many suburban garage doors. The spectacular doll-house view revealed all the young women in their evening clothes, at once. As they searched the crowd blankly and accepted the applause they looked less like dolls, or like young women, than like the most exquisite, exotic animals.

Photo: Courtesy of Fashion to Max

February 07, 2016 by Nalina Moses

IF THESE ROCKS COULD TALK

There’s only one rock that matters in Athol Fugard’s play The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek. That’s the hut-sized boulder at the center of the stage, that dominates the red sand, scrub brush, and rubble around it. The rock is meant to stand for rural South Africa, where the play unfolds. This is a faraway land whose whose earth and sky, whose rhythms and possibilities, are different from our own. And this is a land that’s prehistoric. The rock’s surfaces are ravaged, as if they’ve withstood centuries of sun and rain. It’s stood here, in this place, far longer than people have.

In the first act, set in the 1960′s, an old black man paints bright glyphs across the rock and tells his assistant, a small boy, “This is my story.” Decades later the boy, now a young man, repaints the rocks, to reclaim the old man’s story in a world that has forgotten it. While the rock is part of the play’s it’s peripheral to the performance. This play is one of words: declarations, remembrances, threats, and ideas. Everything is spoken. Even as the old man paints the rock, he explains what each mark stands for. The rock itself remains mute. And that’s a shame, because it’s such a powerful figure. Lit by a scatter of starry ceiling lights, it has an eery, lunar-like presence. It’s the richest element of the play.

May 23, 2015 by Nalina Moses

MAKE IT LOUDER

Confession: when I bought tickets to see Macbeth at the Armory it was with little interest in the Tragedie of Macbeth, its contemporary retelling, Shakespeare in general, or immersive theater. It was to witness Kenneth Branagh fill the Drill Hall with his voice. I will listen to him perform under just about any circumstances ( bizarre, goofy, politically dubious). His voice gives great pleasure. When he speaks I’m reminded how beautiful English can be, and how expressive male voices can be.

This production gives us a lot of Branagh, who wears his rough red stubble, tartan shawl and leather breeches well. But the sound mix seems to hold his voice lower than that of the other actors. And he rushes through his words, glossing over the language and also the drama. When, at the end, he’s told that Lady Macbeth is gone, he starts right into the famous “Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow” soliloquy and then, suddenly, the speech, and his grief, are done.

This production doesn’t value language. The play has been squashed to two hours, cutting out chunks of dialogue including “Eye of newt, and toe of frog/Wool of bat, and tongue of dog." The transitions between scenes are brisk, and several other actors also rush through their words. Though they speak clearly it’s too quickly for the sounds, and the meanings, to stick. Without pauses Shakespeare’s language, for someone like me, who has no special literary knowledge, is a finely-wrought and pointless lyric.

One voice breaks through. Richard Coyle, who plays MacDuff, has a clear, direct voice whose rhythms sound authentically Scottish. It’s the voice of a good, strong man; when we hear it we believe that he is a natural soldier and that he himself would make a good king. When MacDuff receives news that his wife and child have been taken he stops in mid-step, and this small rupture expresses grief more fully than even his words do. It’s exciting each time he appears, and moving each time he speaks. Why don’t I feel this way about Macbeth?

Photograph by Stephanie Berger, courtesy of Park Avenue Armory.

June 28, 2014 by Nalina Moses