Reviews 2017
Reviews 2017
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music by Juliet Palmer, libretto by Anna Chatterton, directed by Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière
Toronto Masque Theatre, Streetcar Crowsnest, Toronto
March 10 & 11, 2017
Prince: “Before you everything was so simple
Now now now so complex”
Toronto Masque Theatre’s latest commission is a great success. The Man Who Married Himself is an opera by Juliet Palmer to a libretto by Anna Chatterton that blends East and West, dance and drama. Palmer and Chatterton previously collaborated on an opera that integrated movement in Voice-Box (2010) about women in boxing. The new piece continues that opera’s exploration of the nature of gender but looks at the question from the viewpoints of both and female. Musically, dramatically and thematically the new opera is so attractive that I hope a revival will be possible in the near future.
Chatterton’s subject matter comes from from a folktale from Karnataka in South India, “The Prince Who Married His Own Left Half”, as related by the scholar and translator A.K. Ramanujan in his collection A Flowering Tree (1997). In the tale a Prince does not wish to marry because “Other women are uncontrollable. It's hard to keep them in line”. To please his father, Prince says that he will marry but only if the woman is created from his own left side. His side is surgically removed and planted in a bed of flowers whence a Newborn Woman emerges. The Prince assumes that because she was created from himself that he can keep the Woman under his control, but he discovers to his embarrassment that the Newborn Woman has a mind of her own. She is attracted to a young man (who is also a wizard) and takes him as her Lover. The Lover visits the Newborn Woman in the form of a snake until the Prince spies it and has it killed. The conclusion involved a riddle which will result in the death of either the Prince or the Newborn Woman.
Thus the subject matter itself will have resonances for those both from the East and from the West. Chatterton is one of those rare writers of modern libretti who really understands the nature of her task. She knows that it takes longer to sing than to speak lines and that individual words and phrases may be repeated for greater emphasis. Chatterton mentions in her programme note that she was inspired by the padams of the Tegulu poet Kshestrayya (c.1600-80), who wrote erotic devotional songs for dancing courtesans. This has led her to a poetic concreteness in her imagery and a careful choice of words for both sense and sound.
Chatterton’s care is well rewarded because composer Juliet Palmer seems to caress her words with repetition and some phrases are repeated so often in sequence that we start to hear the words less as words than as a type of music. Palmer’s style could be called a kind of minimalist impressionism. It is melodic and seductive but it’s as if she intentionally conveys those qualities with the minimum of her six-member ensemble’s resources. Seldom do all play at once. In some of her most gorgeous music, as in the interlude when the Newborn Woman and the Lover fall in love or when the Newborn Woman oversees the Lover’s cremation only a hurdy-gurdy and a single instrumentalist are used to create a sensuous atmosphere of love and adoration. Her duet for the Newborn Woman and the Lover is so melodic that with a little tweaking it could be an alt-rock pop song.
Palmer is very sensitive to the kinds of voices she writes for. Before the Prince is split in two, she has counter-tenor Scott Belluz sing in his natural baritone. When the split is complete he shifts into the full, rich extended falsetto of the counter-tenor for which he known. Near the end Palmer gives the Prince a mad scene which Belluz chillingly performs.
All three singer wear body mics, but the amplification of Belluz is barely noticeable compared to that of the two other singers – Susha and Alex Samaras – known best for jazz and improvisation. It takes a while to get used to the mix of voice types, but Palmer has expertly gauged the level of accompaniment for both. Especially for Susha, Palmer will have the ensemble provide a drone over which she can demonstrate her skill at extended melismas that are a hallmark of Indian vocal improvisation. A secondary result of this technique is that it also recalls the earliest use of voice in Western music in the organums of Léonin (d. 1201) and Pérotin (fl. 1200).
Choreographer Hari Krishnan, whose work is integral to the production, has his two dancers – Sze-Yang Ade-Lam and Jelani Ade-Lam – represent the inner feelings of the Prince (Sze-Yang) and the Newborn Woman (Jelani). Costume designer has clad Sze-Yang in green and black to link him to the dominant colour of the Prince’s complex patterned clothing and Jelani in red and black to link him to those colours worn by the Newborn Woman. Krishnan’s choreography combines the mudras of Indian classical dance with floor-oriented modern dance. One of the most effective scenes in the opera is the funeral for the Lover where the two lithe, and agile dancers represent everything from devotional assistants to the flames themselves.
Chatterton has deliberately added anachronisms to the tale with the mention of the Prince’s penthouse and of its glass walls. Yet, even without them the opera dramatizes with great impact the battle of the sexes. Palmer uses the two voices of the counter-tenor to suggest that the Prince allegorically represents the dual nature of every human being. Once split in two, Chatterton likens the Prince’s possessiveness of the Newborn Woman to trying to re-imprison her in his body again. As in Genesis, it is difficult for the male to recognize that the female also has free will and is a separate entity.
In this, Toronto Masque Theatre’s second last season, it is both heartening and disheartening to see its new commission reach such a height in fusing the performing arts. One is happy that TMT has achieved such a success, but concerned about who will oversee new creations like this to the further revivals they deserve. In any case, congratulations to all those involved. The Man Who Married Himself may be one of the finest new works TMT has ever commissioned.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Scott Belluz, Sze-Yang Ade-Lam, Susha, Jelani Ade-Lam and Alex Samaras, ©2017 Orchid Fung; Scott Belluz as the Prince and Susha as the Newborn Woman, ©2017 Claire Padua; Sze-Yang Ade-Lam and Jelani Ade-Lam, ©2017 Gordon Mony-Penny.
For tickets, visit http://crowstheatre.com.
2017-03-12
The Man Who Married Himself