MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Desdemona

Desdemona
Melbourne Festival & UnionPay International
17 October 2015
Sumner Theatre
to 19 October
www.festival.melbourne

Sydney season: 23, 24 & 25 October. Details: sydneyfestival.org.au.

Desdemona. Melbourne Festival. Photo by Mark Allan

The Melbourne Festival production of Peter Sellars Desdemona sold out. With reactions ranging from  "tedious" – there were walk outs and some impressive snoring – to genius, it's been talked about a lot. I'm in the genius camp. I was engrossed, fascinated and enchanted by a work that's equally as meditative and relaxing as it's demanding and forceful.

American Nobel Prize–winning author Toni Morrison and Malian musician Rokia Traoré wrote their reflection on Shakespeare's Othello via email.

Set in an afterlife where people become their true selves, the now-adult Desdemona meets the woman who brought her up, her mother's slave Barbary – referenced once in the text. Traoré sings as Barbary, with two female backing vocalists and two male musicians, and Tina Benko speaks Morrison's text as Desdemona.

The contrast is far more than the obvious black and white. Traoré sings like there's nothing guarding her emotions. It's music that is felt more than heard and the projected translations of her songs are barely necessary. Benko relies on the meanings of her words. Her Desdemona is trying to break free of what she wanted to see as true love and hides behind a wall of anger and confusion that is torn down even when she doesn't want it to be.  Both remarkable performances feed the other without diluting each other's power or story.

In this place they are able to see their relationship through the eyes of the other. Barbary – which wasn't her real name; it was what the English called Africa – saw herself as a slave, with no rank and no choice, who did whatever child The Desdemona wanted. Desdemona saw Barbary as her real mother, her best friend, and the only person who loved and comforted her. She also saw her position as young woman "on the cusp of unmarriageability" as one where her choices were as limited as Barbary's. However, she wanted to love like Barbary and chose a man worthy of her. She married Othello, the only black man she'd met.

Desdemona also meets and shares her meetings with the other dead, including her servant Emilia, her mother, Othello's mother and Othello. Knowing the story helps, but this work is about the relationships between characters so it's not necessary

I haven't read Othello well, but this production let me see it from perspectives that I had never have thought of. And this is the heart of how Sellars creates theatre.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

And here's an extra reflection on its director Peter Sellars.

In the middle of an amazing Melbourne Festival program – one that has taken me by surprise – my favourite hour, so far,  has been Peter Sellars's artist talk on a Friday afternoon.

I've been a fan of Sellars since I saw his production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, set in New York's Trump Towers, on the tv in the 1990s. (Who'd have thought then what Trump'd be trying to do now). Even on a tiny screen with subtitles, I was totally engaged in a story that felt like it was written for the world I lived in. It made me look at opera differently.

Then I discovered his work with composer John Adams (I want every opera – every theatre – experience to leave me feeling like Nixon in China does) and was beyond excited when he was apointed director of the 2002 Adelaide Festival. That appointment didn't have a happy ending, but when I asked Sellars about it, he said that surely being rejected by a dull conservative government for programming community and Indigenous work was a good thing.

At his talk, he told us how Desdemona started many years ago as at a long lunch with Morrison and him mentioning Othello's inherent racism and it being a text past its "use-by date". Toni had some things to say about that. Sellars went on to create an Othello set in Washington, just after Obama was elected, and Morrison responded with Desdemona.

Sellars – who has a mohawk perfect for a receding hairline, wears bright print shirts and beads, and hugs every person he meets like they are a long-lost friend –  talks about art as using collaboration, skill, craft and sophistication to create a space that preciously didn't exist.

This space, in his case a stage, is where people come to meet and discuss. It's a space that defines what it means to be human and lets us see the world from another person's perspective. It's all about perspective. He says how one person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist, so theatre is about finding ways to share other perspectives and find the common and inclusive place where we are all human.

Or, "It's like telling your father something they don't want to hear."

I have days where I am sick of the abuse and eyerolling I get when I talk about missing voices on stage, discuss the politics and assumptions undermining a production, or despair that I want theatre to be something that questions rather than distracts us for an hour or so. I have plenty of distractions in my life, I want to see theatre that shows me something I haven't seen or thought about before; I want to see the world though someone else's eyes.

As his perspective of Othello changed when he saw it through Toni's eyes, Sellars invites us to see Desdemona through the eyes we may never have thought of seeing it through.

Review: Nixon in China

Nixon in China
Opera Victoria
16 May 2013
Her Majesty's Theatre
21 and 23 May
victorianopera.com.au

I've loved Nixon in China from the time I curiously listened to a highlights recording and John Adams became one of my favourite contemporary composers at its opening chorus. Opera Victoria's exquisite production has confirmed its place as a masterpiece of 20th century art and loudly hinted that the best opera in Australia is not being made by our national company.

The opera is based on President Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Nixon dubbed his visit "the week that changed the world" and brought his wife, Pat, National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger (who organised the visit secretly and is the only character still alive), and the American press corps with him. While this would be a nothing story today (unless maybe Obama went to North Korea), it was the first time in 25 years that the west had seen China – one fifth's of the world's population had been hidden – and this first-term president knew that he was making history.

Nixon continued to make history and is remembered more for the Watergate tapes than what was achieved by the visit to China, as Mao Tse-tung and his wife Chiang Ch'ing are now mostly remembered mostly for the atrocities they supported.

The last time Australia saw a Nixon in China was 1992 when the Adelaide Festival presented Peter Sellars's original 1987 production, which he created hand-in-hand with Adams and librettist Alice Goodman, even if they often disagreed.  Sellars re-created this production in 2011 for the New York Met (seen here in cinemas), so most familiarity with the work comes from his productions. Opera Victoria have a budget about the size of the Met's shoe budget, so director Roger Hodgman and his creators had to make very different artistic choices.

Designer Richard Roberts simplifies the world with a set that's symbolic rather than a reflection of the photos of the time. A huge red curtain is the backdrop for most of the action, with Esther Marie Hayes's costumes adding the historical placement.

This relative simplicity allows for a more contemporary reading of the work and without being tied so tightly to living memory (all I remember of 1972 was getting a baby brother), there are moments that are so much stronger when seen from now. There's Nixon's singing about the mystery of "news" and his amazement at the satellite technology that lets the whole world watch and listen. Mao's talking about liking right wing politicians and the "facism" of the extreme left could be an opinion piece today, and Pat's dismay at a jade elephant not being one of a kind came before "Made in China" was printed on so much of our stuff.

However, without knowledge of the history, Act 1 is especially confusing and would benefit from something as simple as a projection of date and place. (I spent the interval explaining it to friends.) The work isn't about the historical truth, but just knowing when and where we are helps an audience to stop looking for those clues and relax into the real truth of the work.

Much of it's truth – historical and emotional – is in the remarkable libretto by Alice Goodman, which is readable by itself. A lot of her libretto is based on transcripts, so it's easy to think that it's what really happened, but she also researched widely, from Nixon's personal letters to the insomnia that plagued Chou En-Lai, and this knowledge adds such a strong reality to piece that even the imagined scenes feel like they must be real. The genius of the work is that it takes us from what the world saw into the heads and hearts of the characters. This lets Nixon and co sing what they actually said, while we also hear what they may have been thinking.

Act I's three scenes open on an empty airfield outside Peking where a chorus of Red Army Guards recite from Mao's Red Book and build into a glorious crescendo of anticipation as the plane lands and Nixon appears at the door to wave and create one of the most iconic images of 1972 and his presidency. This act is based on the first day in China, taking the president from his airport meeting with Premier Chou En-lai to a meeting with Mao and ending with a banquet toasting peace and everything else as the drinks keep flowing.

Act II's two scenes begins with Pat's visits to hospitals, factories and schools and ends with a performance of a revolutionary ballet devised by Chiang Ch'ing. As the story moves from the international and political to the social, Pat becomes more and more enamoured by China until she's shattered by the images and attitudes of the ballet and Madame Mao.

Act III's one scene is the last day of the visit and is a complete imagining by the composer and librettist that moves into the private rooms and imagined thoughts of the characters.

But the history and story of the piece are not what make it so amazing. After all, this is an opera and Adams's composition is unforgettable. I don't know enough about music to explain why his music works, but I know that it's full of conflict and discord and confusion that lets you feel the emotions of the characters, and when it comes together in harmony, you can't help but soar with it.

And great composition needs great musicians and singers. Conductor Fabian Russell creates a sound that celebrates and understands the role of every note and it's ridiculous to even consider faulting the cast who have created their characters from the music rather than the recorded historical personas.

Andrew Collis's Kissinger knows he'll never be the centre of attention, even if he's the most worthy. Mao's trio of secretaries (Sally-Anne Russell, Dimity Shepherd and Emily Bauer-Jones) support their emperor in public, but know he's a just a man, as Bradley Daley lets Mao be a weakening man trying to hold onto his greater-than-life image.  And his wife, Eva Jinhee Konh, is angry and determined and her coloratura aria, "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung", almost steals the show. (A friend of mine saying that she must have sung an H.)

Then there's the lyric soprano of Tiffany Speight as Pat Nixon, who brings a sympathy and reality to Pat that's heartwarming and painful. And Christopher Tonkin has a similar approach to Chou En-lai, as a man who knows he'll be forgotten by history and can see the myth making going on around him (and has a tone to his voice that makes me want to hear a lot more of him).

Finally, there's Barry Ryan as Nixon. If you've heard James Maddalena sing Nixon (he created the role and has sung it all over the world), it's hard to imagine anyone else as Nixon – until Barry Ryan opens his mouth. His Nixon is bold and nervous and hides his fears as he's privately overwhelmed. It's a stunning performance.

There are only four performances of Nixon in China. Two have gone, but there's still Tuesday and Thursday this week. It's sad to think that there are so few performances, but I like to think that it's made enough impact to ensure that it's seen again.

And while you book for Nixon, get your tickets for Opera Victoria's next show. On 20 June Sunday in the Park with George opens. Sondheim fans are squealing with joy and so should everyone else because this is one of Sondheim's best works and if we can trust this company with John Adams, we can trust them with Sondheim. And let's hope that there's more of both composers in future programs. I don't think we've had a Dr Atomic (Adams) in Australia and I wasn't living in Melbourne when Roger Hodgman directed A Little Night Music (Sondheim) for the MTC, so it must be time to let him do it again.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Nixon in China opens tonight.

Victorian Opera's production of Nixon in China opens tonight.

One of my biggest theatre regrets was not seeing the original version (1987) at the Adelaide Festival in 1992. Maybe because I couldn't afford it, but more likely that I had yet to discover John Adams's music and Peter Sellars's direction; after all, who wants to see an opera about a politician getting out of a plane.

Then in 2011, the New York Metropolitan Opera got the 1987 gang back and filmed it for their HD series. Josephine Giles and I sat in the Nova cinema for four hours on a February morning  and watched production filmed in January.

It was as close as we could be to being there and it was unforgettable in a way that still tarnishes most opera that I've seen recently. Here's Josephine's review.

And here's a 2011 interview with Sellars and Adams.




1992 was also the year I didn't miss Einstein on the Beach and I'll be seeing it in the same theatre in July this year. If you're planning to go (details), you should see Nixon as well (details). Adams music is often dumped in the same minimalist category as Glass; they don't sound anything like each other, but if you like Glass, you may love Adams.

And even if Vic Opera don't reach the heights of the Met, this is still an incredible chance to see this work performed.

Bang on a Can All-Stars in Melbourne

The festival is over and for the first time in a few years, it felt like an arts festival again. Like the wonderful Artists Club of the 05-08 events, the Foxtel Festival Hub gave us space to mix and enjoy. Can we please never have another festival without this sort of space.

This week, it's time to sleep – apart from things like Bill Bryson's lecture on Wednesday and an MTC opening on Thursday – and next week is already filled.

I'm most excited about The Bang on a Can All-Stars first Melbourne concerts on Monday 5 and Wednesday 7 November at the Recital Centre. Details here.

WHAT! (just checking). It's true. The concert on Monday 5 November is FREE. Book here. Book now.

I first saw this group in 1996 when Barrie Kosky brought them to the Adelaide Festival. I went on a friend's spare ticket and am forever grateful. It was love at first dissonant note and I saw them three times. They changed how I saw contemporary music.

My favourite contemporary music experience to date remains their concert in the Adelaide Playhouse that ended with Philip Glass's Two Pages. Demanding, basic and hypnotic, its refusal to resolve drove many to leave (in awesome Adelaide huffy style), but left the rest of us weak. I've since played it a dinner parties – it doesn't work, but it's great car music.

Bang on a Can was formed in New York by David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe in 1987 with the first BOAC Marathon concert. Dedicated to making new music, the marathon concerts have run for 25 years.

The six-piece All-Stars were created in 1992. Freely crossing boundaries between classical, jazz, rock, world and experimental music, they continue to shatter any category and definition of concert music.

Sydney gets John Cage concerts (jealous), but Melbourne gets two (two!) concerts that are impossible to choose between.

First is the Australian premiere of Field Recordings, with nine new works that asked the composers to re-discover authentic American folk music and bring back sounds to challenge their own music. Using film, found sounds and archival audio and video, Field Recordings "builds a bridge between the seen and the unseen, the present and the absent, between today and the past". This is the FREE one.

Concert two includes the Melbourne premiere of BOAC founder Julia Wolfe's Big Beautiful Dark and Scary, written after watching 9/11 attacks with her two young children, two blocks from the Twin Towers. (After listening to this, also find John Adams's remarkable piece about 9/11, On the Transmigration of Souls.)

And they're playing Brian Eno's Music for Airports. I could start to rave, but I may not stop if I do.

Guest Review: Nixon in China

Nixon in China
New York Metropolitan Opera
22 February 2011
Nova Cinema
to 3 March

Review by Josephine Giles

Cinema Nova has been showing the Met Opera in HD series since its launch a few years ago. The seasons always contain many well known and popular operas, showcasing singers, orchestras and directors that are unarguably the best of the best. But, for me, the real value of the program lies in the opportunity to experience operas that are rarely, if ever, presented in Australia.

Nixon in China is one such piece, and is a must see for anyone interested in opera, or even theatre for that matter. My disappointment at the mediocrity of much contemporary opera leads me sometimes to the point of giving up hope for the survival of the art form, but Nixon is an antidote to such despair. Long term collaborators Peter Sellars and John Adams, through their intelligent and superlatively creative treatment of a world changing event, successfully answer the perennial question “why opera?” with “this could only be an opera”.

First produced in Houston in1987, Nixon in China has taken 24 years to reach the Met stage, and this production, recorded just two weeks ago, marks 39 years to the month since the historic event of the title. Director Peter Sellars (yes, the one who was simply too big for the Adelaide Festival) suggested the subject matter to Adams and produced the premiere season. Since then the production has not been significantly altered, but progressively tinkered with to take into account changes in the cast plus the varying requirements of opera theatres around the world. This simulcast essentially recreates a 2006 English National Opera production, with adjustments made for the massive stage, expanded chorus, and the extra resources available at the cashed-up Met.

Sellars also directs the simulcast. Its seamless mix of full-stage shots and close-ups left me wondering just how many cameras it took to film this stage production in such detail – and where the hell did they hide them all? More lingering though is admiration for the absolute focus of the performers, keeping in mind that a simulcast leaves no chance for retakes if one is to blink or cough at an inopportune moment.

Running at almost 4 hours (with 2 intervals), this opera would appear to be not for the faint hearted. However my exhaustion at the end owed more to do with the emotional power of the opera than its length. Composer and conductor John Adams, with librettist Alice Goodman, has created an opera that communicates a profound humanism – not easy when you’re dealing with polarising political leaders like Richard (Tricky Dicky) Nixon, Kissinger, Chairman and Madame Mao, and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai.

As with Adams’s other masterpiece, the opera Doctor Atomic (about Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project), Nixon in China starts with, then moves  beyond the well documented facts of the historical into a poetic imagining of the inner lives of the protagonists. It begins with comparatively theatrical naturalism, accompanied by the now familiar harmonic and rhythmic patterns of Glass inspired minimalism: the staging progressively becomes more surreal, as the music – sometimes surprisingly lyrical – takes on different flavours, including wistful references to the music of the 40s. This all culminates in a moving meditation on the nature, responsibility, and cost of power. The final scene, exploring the doubts and frailty of the leaders, all of whom were on the brink of their political or physical demise, is devastating. I would never have imagined I could be moved to tears of sympathy for such a bunch – but I admit – I wept.

Heading the cast is baritone James Maddalena, who created the title role in 1987. Now in his mid-fifties, Maddelena at times struggles with the prolonged vocal demands of the music, but he embodies the character of Nixon so perfectly it is impossible to imagine any other singer in the role. The other principals unfailingly match Maddelena’s high standards, with spectacular singing and detailed, nuanced acting.

The only criticism I have of the simulcast is the now ubiquitous interviews with the singers as they exit the stage at interval. Akin to thrusting a microphone in to the face of someone who has just swum a 1500m Olympic Final and asking how they feel, these interviews are embarrassing and cringe-making.  I just wish they would leave the poor singers alone so they can get back to their dressing rooms for a pee, or even a stiff drink, if that is what they need. I can see the Met is trying to humanise opera singers in the minds of the public, and it can be interesting to hear these singers talking in accents far removed from their stage personas. Fascinating too are the shots of backstage at the Met between acts. However, in a piece as profound as Nixon in China the interviews are a regrettable interruption of the magic created on stage.

  

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com

Nixon in China at the Nova

A screen will never capture the experience of live theatre, but I didn't get to New York for the Met's recent revival production of Nixon in China and I was too poor to see it when the original came to the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1992. Given I saw Einstein on the Beach in the same year in Melbourne, I've regretted missing Nixon ever since.

But the Met have been filming their operas and Nixon is on at the Nova for the next week or so. I'm excited.

The exceptionally wonderful Peter Sellars is the director and John Adam's score is a minimal masterpiece.

If you loved Tomorrow in a year at last year's MIAF and Philip Glass's operas, Nixon in China is a must.

I saw it this morning (Jo Giles is writing a review). BEST four hours I've spent in a long time. Even on a screen, it's an experience that left me not wanting to breathe in case I missed something. This is what opera is meant to be. And you get to see what the Met is like backstage. I'd see it again.

Here's some info about it.

Here's how to book.

This is the kind of production that might change your expectations of what theatre, music and opera can be.