Hello Gentlemen,
It's Asian Nicole. Last night, I had an opportunity to see the opera-'Hercules' in the Four Seasons Centre.
Styled a “musical drama” by Handel and his librettist, this English-language work of 1745 is not an easy thing to stage.
Well, contemporary directors have some ideas, including the clown prince of deconstructionists, Peter Sellars. It was his take on Hercules that the Canadian Opera Company.
The production premiered in Chicago in 2011 and arrives in Toronto, its Chicago cast intact, to become the first fully staged production of Handel’s 1745 oratorio in Canada. Tafelmusik performed a “semi-staged” version of the oratorio in 2012 directed by Opera Atelier’s Marshall Pynkoski. While the performances of the COC production are definitely worth hearing, those who enjoyed Pynkoski’s non-obtrusive method of storytelling may not wish to deal with Sellars’ sometimes misguided attempts to make the story relevant to Americans.
In Handel’s drama, Hercules returns from his onerous labors knowing only combat. He is uncommunicative. His wife, Dejanira, has endured years of lonely uncertainty. Hercules brings home a beautiful young prisoner, Iole, and Dejanira suspects infidelity. They bicker incessantly.
In hopes of reviving their relationship, Dejanira gives Hercules a jacket soaked in what she believes to be a love potion, but she has been tricked. It is poison. With the garment fused to Hercules' skin, he dies in anguish. The horrified Dejanira snaps and commits suicide, calling for whips of scorpions to lash her ghost. Iole and Hercules’ son, Hyllus, vow to make a better world.
In Sellars' staging, Hercules is an American soldier in combat gear just returned home from the Middle East. Iole is brought in wearing the orange jump suit of a prisoner in Abu Ghraib, and she sings her first aria from under a hood.
It reminds me that the recent memory of the many suicides of Canadian veterans returned from Afghanistan, praising “the theme of Liberty’s immortal song,” which touched me in a way they were never intended to. If you are willing to overlook it, there was much to admire here.
I enjoyed the stage set. On the whole the staging worked brilliantly, fixed on stage were broken marble-like columns that surrounded a central pit of rocky debris.
However, this opera is quite different from the operas I saw before. I was glad I went to see it and I did enjoy it.
It's Asian Nicole. Last night, I had an opportunity to see the opera-'Hercules' in the Four Seasons Centre.
Styled a “musical drama” by Handel and his librettist, this English-language work of 1745 is not an easy thing to stage.
Well, contemporary directors have some ideas, including the clown prince of deconstructionists, Peter Sellars. It was his take on Hercules that the Canadian Opera Company.
The production premiered in Chicago in 2011 and arrives in Toronto, its Chicago cast intact, to become the first fully staged production of Handel’s 1745 oratorio in Canada. Tafelmusik performed a “semi-staged” version of the oratorio in 2012 directed by Opera Atelier’s Marshall Pynkoski. While the performances of the COC production are definitely worth hearing, those who enjoyed Pynkoski’s non-obtrusive method of storytelling may not wish to deal with Sellars’ sometimes misguided attempts to make the story relevant to Americans.
In Handel’s drama, Hercules returns from his onerous labors knowing only combat. He is uncommunicative. His wife, Dejanira, has endured years of lonely uncertainty. Hercules brings home a beautiful young prisoner, Iole, and Dejanira suspects infidelity. They bicker incessantly.
In hopes of reviving their relationship, Dejanira gives Hercules a jacket soaked in what she believes to be a love potion, but she has been tricked. It is poison. With the garment fused to Hercules' skin, he dies in anguish. The horrified Dejanira snaps and commits suicide, calling for whips of scorpions to lash her ghost. Iole and Hercules’ son, Hyllus, vow to make a better world.
In Sellars' staging, Hercules is an American soldier in combat gear just returned home from the Middle East. Iole is brought in wearing the orange jump suit of a prisoner in Abu Ghraib, and she sings her first aria from under a hood.
It reminds me that the recent memory of the many suicides of Canadian veterans returned from Afghanistan, praising “the theme of Liberty’s immortal song,” which touched me in a way they were never intended to. If you are willing to overlook it, there was much to admire here.
I enjoyed the stage set. On the whole the staging worked brilliantly, fixed on stage were broken marble-like columns that surrounded a central pit of rocky debris.
However, this opera is quite different from the operas I saw before. I was glad I went to see it and I did enjoy it.
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