View: Next message | Previous message Next in topic | Previous in topic Next by same author | Previous by same author Previous page (July 1999, week 2) | Back to main OPERA-L page Join or leave OPERA-L Reply | Post a new message Search Options: Chronologically | Most recent first Proportional font | Non-proportional font ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 23:37:20 +0000 Reply-To: "H.E.Elsom" Sender: Discussion of opera and related issues From: "H.E.Elsom" Subject: Rashomon, Almeida, 12Jul99 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Music by Alejandro Vinao, Libretto by Craig Raine Masago Frances Lynch The bandit James Meek The woodcutter Andrew Gallagher The medium Will Missin The husband Julian Stocker Director Frances M Lynch This forty-minute opera, composed by Argentinian-born and UK-based Alejandreo Vinao, is based closely on Kurosawa's film (which was shown immediately afterwards). The title in fact refers to the narrative frame of the film, in which the woodcutter tells his version of the story to his friends at the arch of Rashomon. But the frame is missing in the opera, and with it some semi-comic irony about perspective -- an opening joke is the old guys sitting around in the glorious mediaeval setting, complaining that everything has gone to blazes these days. Vinao and Raine instead reduce the central part of the film to four narrative voices: a passing woodcutter, a bandit, a samurai (speaking through a medium) and his wife Masago each relate their version of how the bandit raped the wife and the samurai died. The woodcutter is not as disinterested an observer as he claims, since he stole a rope from the scene and also, it turns out at the end, took voyeuristic pleasure in it just as the audience of the film might be assumed to do. The bandit says he killed the husband in a duel after the wife begged them to fight it out to spare her reputation. The wife says that she killed the husband for not defending her. The husband says that he killed himself from shame. Where the film re-enacts the different versions, with painterly visual effects, the opera focuses on the individual voices, and associated sound-worlds for each, based on driving rhythm, brutal, repetitive melodic elements and sound textures. One of the prominent sounds is a bass flute or similar, but there isn't any foregrounded orientalism. The prosaic woodcutter has a kind of Sprechstimme, the bandit has a more melodic line against percussion effects, the husband sings a dialogue with the countertenor medium, and the wife sings a quasi-operatic line with a chiming vocal backing. The production (which has reportedly become more static since previous performances in Germany) likewise concentrates on the characters speaking. They mainly stand in spots and deliver, amplified in English and with impeccable clarity, with simple, authentic-looking gestures and costumes similar to those in the film. The text suggests that they are speaking to a judge in court, but the idea is clearly that they are all defending their image of themselves to the audience. It's enormously to the credit of the director and performers that this works pretty well, and that each character has a dramatic as well as a musical identity. The performances were impressive within this format, with Frances Lynch a dainty but definitely dodgy Masago and Will Missin a very spooky white-faced medium. James Meek was a violent bandit, but of course could not equal the great Toshiro Mifune in grimacing. Forty minutes was about enough, not just because the music (all pre-recorded except for the singers) was draining, but also because that was exactly how long it took for the different narratives to unfold, collide, and resolve uncomfortably in the woodcutter's confession of voyeurism. I found it striking, but more ingenious than enjoyable. Somehow the movie has more sympathy for everybody. And I'm afraid I couldn't help thinking of the narratives of Nanki Poo's execution in The Mikado. Regards, Helen - H.E. Elsom he@helsom.demon.co.uk http://www.helsom.demon.co.uk/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main OPERA-L page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back to the LISTSERV home page at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU.