Elsewhere
Elsewhere
✭✭✭✭✩
by Kris Defoort, directed by Guy Cassiers
LOD (Ghent) / Toneelhuis (Antwerp) / La Monnaie (Brussels), Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg Studio
May 25-26, 2009
Belgian composer Kris Defoort’s latest opera “House of the Sleeping Beauties” proved to be a a fascinating work with a virtuoso part sung by Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan. “Beauties” had its world premiere in Brussels on May 3, 2009 and toured to several other venues until June 20. I saw it in the Studio of the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg on May 25.
Based on Yasunari Kawabata’s 1969 novella of the same name, the opera focusses on the 67-year-old Eguchi, called only “The Old Man”, who visits a most unusual brothel. Here old men pay for the privilege of sleeping, but nothing more, with young naked women who have been drugged so they are deeply asleep from before the encounter until after the man departs. Eguchi thus never knows the women in any sense. Kawabata’s existential theme is the fundamental loneliness of the individual and the illusion of a unified self.
In director and co-librettist Guy Cassiers’ inventive staging, the 90-minute-long English-language work alternated unaccompanied spoken scenes between Eguchi and the brothel madam played by actors Dirk Roofthooft and Katelijne Verbeke, with sung scenes accompanied by full orchestra between Eguchi (the fine baritone Omar Ebrahim) and each of his three Sleeping Beauties (the kimono-clad Hannigan). These scenes also featured a chorus of four more Sleeping Beauties and the contortions of an acrobat seemingly caught in a web behind the playing area. Eguchi’s three Beauties became objects that reflected his own past--his first sexual encounter, his grand passion for a married prostitute, his dying mother.
In its most abstract mode Defoort’s music created areas of sonic tension that stretch to the limit until they burst. Simultaneously, however, the orchestra imitated quite naturalistically the sounds of the raging weather outside the house. For the scene involving the married prostitute, Defoort segued into imitation baroque, the older style reflecting the melodrama of the scene. Thus, he gave Hannigan the opportunity to showcase her talents in both contemporary and baroque music. Her crystalline voice, precision and clarity of diction were perfect for soaring above the ominous dilatations and explosions in the orchestra while the baroque pastiche gave her a chance to toss off thrilling coloratura trills and roulades. Her moving performance as the three very distinct women was primarily responsible for endowing the work with strong emotional appeal. One left convinced that this compelling if disturbing work played with great conviction by the 25-member Asko/Schönberg Ensemble under conductor Patrick Davin deserves the widest possible audience.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Opera Canada 2009-11-09.
Photo: Omar Ebrahim and Barbara Hannigan with Kaori Ito (above). ©2009 Kurt van der Elst.
2009-05-26
Luxembourg, LUX: House of the Sleeping Beauties