{"id":49813,"date":"2017-12-10T18:25:20","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T23:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=49813"},"modified":"2017-12-11T18:59:19","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T23:59:19","slug":"zero-atgs-new-mash-opera-will-surpass-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2017\/12\/10\/zero-atgs-new-mash-opera-will-surpass-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"ZERO IN | Why AtG’s New Mash-up Opera Will Surpass All Your Expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Against the Grain\u00a0Theatre explores baroque music to highlight stories of citizen displacement, fear, hope and reconciliation. (Illustration: Dmitry Bondarenko and Eitan Zohar<\/span>\/Against the Grain Theatre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born out of today\u2019s difficult social climate with Europe\u2019s refugee crisis and the divisive politics in North America, Against the Grain\u2019s Bound <\/em>explores \u2014 more importantly questions \u2014 the current state of the displaced, the dehumanized, and the mistreated. Premiering in the Canadian Opera Company\u2019s Jackman Studio from December 14\u201316, these will be the first performances in a three-year \u201cconcept to realization\u201d project. The workshop process to create the text, music, and staging began a mere three weeks before the first performance, and I had a chance to observe these provocative and revealing rehearsals.<\/p>\n

Bringing Opera into the Present<\/h3>\n

On Monday, November 27, the performers walked into to the first rehearsal knowing little more about Bound <\/em>than what can be found on Against the Grain\u2019s website<\/a>. Although AtG didn\u2019t reveal many details about the plot or its characters because the work is not quite there yet, we do know that the performers will be Martha Burns (spoken role), Danika Lor\u00e8n (Soprano), Asitha Tennekoon (Tenor), David Trudgen (Counter-tenor), Justin Welsh (Baritone), Michael Uloth (Bass), Victoria Marshall (Mezzo-soprano), and Miriam Khalil (Soprano and AtG Founding Member).<\/p>\n

Using arias composed by George Frideric Handel and offered by each performer, Joel Ivany (stage director and librettist) and Topher Mokrzewski (musical director and pianist) have set this music to new words, and in some changed the composition, to express a range of experiences had by contemporary refugees. Like their previous productions including a modernization of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart\u2019s operas as Figaro\u2019s Wedding<\/em>, #UncleJohn<\/em>, and A Little too Cozy<\/em>, Ivany and Mokrzewski will push the boundaries of what opera can mean to a contemporary audience.<\/p>\n

Inspired by the Canadian Opera Company\u2019s Director Alexander Neef, Ivany explains that one of the reasons for choosing Handel\u2019s music to express contemporary issues is its distance from and foreignness to today\u2019s spectators. The music\u2019s antiquated style offers a skeleton to explore today\u2019s relevant issues, thereby completely changing its intent. Ivany describes Handel\u2019s music as \u201cpure and honest, like truth,\u201d a metaphor for what this production hopes to find through these immigrants\u2019 stories. Ivany went on to say that, \u201ceach person you judge has an inner beauty\/truth,\u201d but you cannot always see it at first glace. Because it subverts our expectations, Handel\u2019s music offers a new lens to explore these stories and find new meaning.<\/p>\n

The Possibilities of Failure<\/h3>\n

Despite this utopian view of the project, Mokrzewski expressed the fear on everyone\u2019s mind: What if this project doesn\u2019t work? Despite this risk, like everyone at the rehearsal, myself included, we were curious to see if it could. As a three-year production, which might be better described as a co-production with its performers, the show will certainly change with each performance depending on who is performing it and the spectators watching it. But the possibility of failure allows the team to dig into the messiness that is the current treatment of refugees and maybe find some answers.<\/p>\n

Returning to the first day of rehearsal, questions arose about how to deal with these political topics as soon as Ivany and Mokrzewski explained the concept. For example, several of the artists raised concerns about cultural appropriation. Martha Burns, who will be performing the only spoken role in the opera, \u201cThe State,\u201d asked such poignant questions as, \u201chow do we make the other not \u2018the other\u2019?\u201d and \u201cwhat gives you the right to enter a culture that is not your own?\u201d At that point in time no one had the answer, and as many of the performers noted, it would be naive to claim that any one of us could provide one. At no time was this more apparent than when Ivany raised the question on everyone\u2019s mind: \u201cI am white, what right do I have to articulate these stories?\u201d However, as the group came to agree, none of us have the \u201cright,\u201d but we can try to engage and respect these differences by creating a dialogue.<\/p>\n

How to Create a Dialogue with Other Cultures<\/h3>\n

The first step was to create a safe and neutral space where the performers were free to engage in a dialogue without fear of offending by asking questions that one might consider dumb or politically incorrect. \u00a0Then, once they knew who their characters were, each performer was tasked to find current articles discussing the challenges these different types of people have experienced. Furthermore, they drew on their own experiences to see how different, or in rare instances how similar their lives can be to their characters\u2019.<\/p>\n

What I think was a stroke of genius was AtG\u2019s strong effort to invite guest speakers to talk about the different subject matter that the performers were exploring. These included a holocaust survivor, a representative from the Canadian Arab Institute, and a member of The519-Trans-Community. These presentations addressed many of the questions asked throughout the rehearsals and offered enlightening ways to create a dialogue with people from these communities while respecting their difference. For example, the member of The519-Trans-Community captured the entire purpose of Bound <\/em>in one simple sentence, \u201cyou don\u2019t know who someone is unless you ask them.\u201d When asked about whether women are forced to wear a veil, such as the hijab or the niqab, the representative from the Canadian Arab Institute commented that, \u201cwhen people are safe, and given the choice, they will make the choice.\u201d She went on to explain that freedom of choice in Canada provides this safe place, although the new law in Quebec policing veiling endangers this choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada lives in a fantasyland\u201d<\/h3>\n

Canada has a responsibility to bring forth and discuss these sorts of stories. A Canadian immigration lawyer also invited to share observed that, \u201cCanada lives in a fantasyland.\u201d Because our borders are three oceans and the United States, we are often freed from the ills of migrant struggle and citizens seeking asylum. This is not to deny that we have played a part: Canada has always had the capacity to take on more than its share of the struggle, from resettling Europe\u2019s displaced masses after the Second World War, to taking in the Vietnamese Boat People, to resettling thousands of Syrians in just the past few years. However, our geography protects us from the urgency of the needs of millions of migrants, and Bound<\/em> can correct the delusion that our geography can insulate us from their plight. We need to take a hard look at ourselves and assess whether we should step out to help as a matter of choice as opposed to need.<\/p>\n

This hard look can start with a show like Bound <\/em>to expose Canadians to refugee experiences that we don\u2019t encounter with the same degree of risk as other countries around the world. Instead of reading about these stories in the news, the performers of Bound<\/em> offer a glimpse at several in one show. Some might argue this show is like a peaceful protest that sheds light on opinions from various backgrounds to question stereotypes, and better appreciate the differences between these people.<\/p>\n

When Music becomes Political<\/h3>\n

Like myself, you might be thinking how can these political and social ideas be communicated through music composed almost three hundred years ago? From what I have seen, the unexpected answer is: quite well. Although Mokrzewski warned the performers that \u201copera can\u2019t be good if you pack it with a lot of information,\u201d he does recognize that it can act as an effective vehicle for larger social and political ideas. These larger ideas are translated through what he described as the \u201cuniversal humanness of opera.\u201d Opera\u2019s ability to embody larger-than-life emotions in a beautiful and accessible way. With this affect, opera can reach the tragedy of these stories and yet make them personable more than any newspaper.<\/p>\n

As a musician, I am especially interested to see how Ivany and Mokrzewski use some of Handel\u2019s original text and musical form to not only bring these ideas clarity, but also deconstruct and use the boundaries of Handel\u2019s music to the same effect. For example, in one of soprano Danika Lor\u00e8n\u2019s arias, they leave some of Handel\u2019s text untouched to represent the antiquity of the character\u2019s turmoil. The aria form typical of Handel\u2019s style called Da Capo <\/em>has two contrasting sections followed by a repetition of the first. In Bound<\/em>, the repeat is either cut from the aria or used to emphasize what the character is saying.<\/p>\n

Even the voices cast in Bound <\/em>produce meaning. For example, counter-tenor David Trudgen plays a trans-woman and his soprano register translates today like someone who has transitioned from one sex to another, rather than a castrato <\/em>as seen in Handel\u2019s time. Although I have yet to hear it, some of Trudgen\u2019s text is drawn directly from articles about a trans women’s experiences.\u00a0 Similarly, tenor Asitha Tennekoon sings an aria based on Un Momento di Contento<\/em> from Alcina <\/em>where the text includes quotes from figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

One of the most interesting examples of Handel\u2019s music being translated into a contemporary musical context is soprano Miriam Khalil\u2019s reinterpretation of Ah! Mio Cor<\/em> from Alcina<\/em>. Khalil sings the first and second section with tasteful ornamentation in a traditional Baroque style, but in the Da Capo <\/em>Mokrzewski and composer Kevin Lau recompose the accompaniment with tremolos <\/em>to dissipate Handel\u2019s delicate piano texture. Over an ambiguous tonal centre, Khalil sings improvised melismas to an English text. Surprisingly, this drastic musical shift did not require much alteration to Handel\u2019s music to sound like another culture\u2019s music. In Bound, <\/em>we hear the deconstruction of Handel\u2019s music, to show \u201ctruth,\u201d the similarity between seemingly different cultures.<\/p>\n

Why is it called “Bound”?<\/h3>\n

Although I missed the discussion of why the show is called Bound<\/em>, if I may be so bold I would like to offer my own interpretation of this title based on what I have seen so far. Bound <\/em>uses text and music to show the ways we are \u201cbound\u201d together. Ivany, Mokrzewski, and Lau\u2019s treatment of the music uses the rigidity of Handel\u2019s form to sometimes stand as an impasse to the characters saturated in ideas of a colonial past while in others the music has an affinity, a \u201cpurity\u201d as Ivany would say, to release other interpretations, showing the likeness between one culture and another. I for one am very excited to see where this show might lead and what other \u201cprotests\u201d it might inspire.<\/p>\n

Readers can catch AtG’s Bound<\/em> at the Canadian Opera Company\u2019s Jackman Studio on 227 Front Street East from December 14 to 16, 2017. For more information visit againstthegraintheatre.com<\/a> or email<\/a> for tickets.<\/p>\n

[Correction Dec. 11, 2017: A previous version incorrectly stated that soprano Miriam Khalil would be singing improvised melismas with Arabic text. The text will be in English.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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