Every year, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts host a month-long theater festival that showcases the work of Turkish performing arts companies as well as that of other companies from around the globe. I went to see a Danish theater company performing an opera adapted from the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the past few years, I've seen Mary Zimmerman tell this story in "Metamorphosis" and Sarah Ruhl in "Eurydice." In both versions, the emotional center of the work is really with Eurydice. In Zimmerman's piece, the tearful moment is not when Orpheus looks back thus losing his love forever but as he's disappearing and we witness her confusion. She can't remember exactly who he is and is confused by his sadness. The chasm between his experience and hers, due to her lack of memory, is the tragedy. Sarah Ruhl's plays are never perfect but are marked by such deep humanity and amazing dialogue that I find them remarkable. Her version explores the relationship among love, loss, and memory. Eurydice's father is in Hades when she arrives. Having manged to resist losing his memory when he crosses into Hades, he acts as her guide upon her arrival and helps her to reconstruct her memories. Without those memories, her love for Orpheus couldn't exist.
I honestly have no idea what languages this opera was in. I know two of the songs were in English but I couldn't understand those and the supertitles were in Turkish. Thus, I had the music (sans the libretto) and the staging to engage me. Even so, I enjoyed it about as much as I did the others. The company was made of of 14 singers, 12 of them in the chorus and the two title characters. I can't comment at all on the story since I understood none of it. And I can't really dissect the music's technique since I know so little about operatic music. I will say however, that I see a fair amount of opera, both old and contemporary, and this was way up there for me. My two favorite late 20th century operas are John Adams' "Nixon in China" and Phillip Glass' "Satyagraha." In fact, it's the Phillip Glass opera that got me interested in new music. Unlike even my favorites of Glass and Adams, the music in this opera, which clocked in at fewer than 90 minutes, was beautiful to me the entire time. It was haunting, sparse, and shockingly varied at times.
The program booklet refers to the show as a visual opera done in three acts. Visually, it was as astounding as anything I've ever seen. Like the music, it was incredibly restrained while also being wildly exuberant within that restraint. The set is a series of about 15 large white steps that are enclosed by a white border, visible in the picture I've attached. The first 10 or 15 minutes of the performance is done in the dark, with the chorus of 12 singers sitting pretty much in a vertical line in stage right, Eurydice lying on one of the stairs on stage left, and Orpheus standing a few steps below her. All 14 performers wear dark gowns with black crowns and wee see only their silhouettes. We listen intently to the music. Then the lights come up slightly and the chorus members begin to move their arms just slightly and in unison. While the movement is minimal, and maybe because it is, it is very beautiful. Afterwards, the staging picks up its pace but largely in terms of lighting. There are moments when Eurydice slowly rolls from one stair to the next but there is very little movement besides that. The blocking acts as tableaux and we experience each scene primarily as still moments, even if there is movement within them. And usually we experience each scene in comparison to a preceeding one. In addition to the movement, the lighting is a star of the show. At one point, the chorus members stand in a diagonal line covering the set from top to bottom. Eurydice is laying on a step and Orpheus stand a few steps below her but looms above her. With just white light and shadow, the stage is black to the left of the chorus members and completely white to the right. As a still image, it's beautiful. There are many, many ways in which the light plays with the white steps and the variety seems like a small miracle. This is something that I'm unable to describe really, so I'm hoping that the image will give you a sense. Near the end of the piece, two intensely green laser lights begin to shoot out of the set. The length of the light glows longer and a layer of green light acting as a wave lay out between the two lasers. That entire system of lights grows longer and longer, eventually extending over the audience, until it covers the entire audience.
Opera lovers, of which I'm not one, say that opera is the greatest art form because it combines music, theater, dance, and visual art (thought the set). I find that this is rarely the case. As theater, it tends to be disappointing. The stories are usually silly and the acting ineffective. The dance is usually boring and often silly. And the sets are usually very impressive but rarely interesting. This production does seem to forgo acting but it sure was high on the other three. While there was no dancing as we often think of it, there certainly was choreographed movement. The set was like something Dan Flavin would have done if he had continued to work. And the music was exceptional.
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