|
Sure, they're sluts -- but boy, can they sing.
Hawaii Opera Theatre's
'Wicked Wahine' series launches
tomorrow with 'La Traviata'By Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.comAnd thankfully so, because minus those silver-tongued soprano voices, the ladies of "Carmen," "Salome" and "La Traviata" might well be vice squad targets, their onstage antics frequently rude, crude, lewd -- and sometimes nude (see below).
But the gals never do wind up in the pokey, partly because of the gorgeous music they've seduced composers into writing for them, partly because of the increased level of sexual frankness these days (hey, how can you be shocked after "Vagina Monologues"?). And then there's the cunning, spectacular way their stories are brought to life, Hawaii Opera Theatre having taken up the latter task in a season that opens tomorrow evening.
Nevertheless, a casual perusal of Carmen's rap sheet, say, can still be an eye-popping experience. There's the wholesale violence in the workplace in Act 1 (she stabs a fellow cigarette factory worker), the continual suggestive writhing to Bizet's music (Acts 1 and 2), the dumping of the guy who sprung her from jail (Act 3) and finally her ignominious death at the tip of his knife blade (Act 4).
|
Violetta, the heroine of Verdi's "Traviata," is likewise no paragon of virtue, although to her credit, she tries to distance herself from past prostitution, spending a good deal of time in Acts 1 and 2 with a boringly righteous suitor (call it fallen woman rehab). Act 2, meanwhile, finds her falling off the wagon again and then climbing back on, only to die of TB in Act 3. This prevents any kind of Act 4, and also prevents Violetta from fulfilling her billing as a "Wicked Wahine" (as HOT has subtitled the season). Then again, she's no Maria von Trapp, either.And then there's the lovely and talented Salome, who needs only one act to unleash her own special brand of perfidy on Strauss's opera. This is a seductress who has her sights set on no less a biblical luminary than John the Baptist and who takes his dismissal of her rather hard, to say the least. In short order, Salome commands that her father, King Herod, have John decapitated, whereupon she goes mad, but not before talking and making love to the head. Oh, and did we mention Salome's celebrated Dance of the Seven Veils, a nasty striptease performed for the pleasure of -- get ready -- her father?
"Maria Ewing probably set a new standard for the Dance of the Seven Veils," said local opera expert Jim Becker, 75, speaking of one of the more memorable "Salome" performances he's witnessed during a long life of opera-going. "She took it all off -- I mean all -- at Covent Garden in London. She's a gorgeous creature, and I guess she decided to flaunt it. But it makes a tough standard for the other girls."
EXPECT MANY MORE delicious anecdotes like the foregoing if you attend Becker's free preview lectures on the HOT season at the Honolulu Academy of Arts or listen to their rebroadcast on KHPR. Though he's far from a spring chicken, Becker's witty analyses of the operatic masterworks are so filled with exuberance, they're sure to appeal to the art's surprising new audience: those under 30.
|
"They say that symphony audiences are getting older and opera audiences are getting younger, and I wish I knew why that was," he said. "But I think it's the surtitles and the fact that the whole tux idea has gone out." Indeed, of late, opera companies have gone to considerable lengths to meet audiences halfway, shedding their upper-class associations and bridging the language gap."Think of it. This season, we've got one (opera) in Italian, one in German and one in French, and the surtitles -- the fact that the words are up there -- has made all the difference in the world. It's made it user-friendly, and it's brought a lot of kids in."
Another reason for the demographic shift may lie in the narrative content of the operas themselves. After all, many of the greatest works take as their subject the loves and struggles of rebellious youth. "La Boheme," with its tale of penniless artists, immediately comes to mind, but also the youthful missteps one witnesses in Verdi's work.
"'Traviata' has become over the years the favorite of young lovers, particularly the young lovers whose parents object to their choice, which is most of them, I suspect," said Becker. "Violetta is a high-class kept woman who falls in love with a young admirer and goes off to live with him in the country, but their liaison scandalizes society. And at the insistence of the young man's father, who says that the scandal is harming his daughter's chances of making a suitable marriage, they part."
It's a story firmly grounded in the mores and conventions of 1850s Paris, and yet it seems completely universal, proof once again that, as Becker put it, "the conventions change but the revolt never does."
Perhaps because it's performed less frequently than the others, Becker is particularly looking forward to HOT's staging of "Salome," directed by the company's artistic director, Henry Akina, and staged with sets by New York artist Thomas Woodruff.
"All three of the pieces appeal to the desire to revolt against authority, but Salome's the ultimate example," he said. "It's kind of a grisly piece, but I think it ties in with the idea of forbidden fruit and the whole Adam-and-Eve-fall thing. It's a story that does come from the Bible, right down to the cutting off of the head, but the Bible stops when the head is given to her. It doesn't suggest that she makes love to the head."
Speaking of which, how do you stage that last part?
"It's best well-darkened, and in fact the stage directions call for the cloud to cover the moon. Herod's so disgusted with the sight of the young lady canoodling with the head of John the Baptist that he orders the lights extinguished, and it is better done that way."
Still, the lights are on and the action is front and center during the murder of opera's greatest vixen, Carmen, at the end of her eponymous epic. A work so popular, HOT was forced to add an extra performance to accommodate ticket demand, "Carmen" has enthralled audiences for more than a hundred years, its music and its heroine both utterly unforgettable.
Maybe that's because Carmen was ahead of her time, a spitfire who, though punished in the end for it, espouses a feminist ethic that rings true even today.
"Carmen is a woman who takes life and death on her own terms," said Becker. "She runs the show. She takes her lovers as she likes, not as they like, and as such is a very willful woman."
Given such modern sensibilities, the possibility exists that younger opera patrons, believe it or not, might identify more closely with HOT's wicked threesome than the older folks who still make up the bulk of the audiences. Then again, to paraphrase Becker, youth fades but the desire for revolt never does.
"When you come right down to it, operas treat the problems and situations we all face in life. The characters up there are larger than life, but they make the same decisions that people have to make in their own lives -- often the wrong ones, but then we do, too."
La Traviata: 8 p.m. tomorrow; 4 p.m. Sunday; and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday HOT season
Salome: 8 p.m. Feb. 15; 4 p.m. Feb. 17; and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19
Carmen: 8 p.m. March 1; 4 p.m. March 3; 7:30 p.m. March 5; and 7:30 p.m. March 7Where: At Neal Blaisdell Center Concert Hall, 777 Ward Ave.
Tickets: $27 to $95
Call: 596-7858Note: Discussion of "Salome" with Jim Becker takes place 10 a.m. Wednesday with the cast members, and 4 p.m. Feb. 9 at Honolulu Academy of Arts, without cast members. Terence Knapp and the cast members will discuss "Carmen" at 10 a.m. Feb. 20. The talk repeats without cast members at 4 p.m. Feb. 22. Talks take place in the Academy Theatre.
Click for online
calendars and events.
