Satyagraha from the Met

This was the latest in the live opera relays to be shown at the DCA in Dundee.  And a most unusual opera it was.  The outline of the opera was not very encouraging, rather intimidating in fact.  How about this - an opera with no dialogue, just adaptations from the Bhagavad Gita, the hindu religious poem.  All sung in Sanskrit and without subtitles!

Yet this was a most enjoyable evening.  The opera is an early work by American composer Philip Glass and covers the experiences of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa.  It traces his transition from a European style lawyer to the dhoti dressed leader of a non-violent protest movement.  It does this through seven tableaux, each representing an important part of Gandhi’s development. 

Much of the attraction of the opera comes from Glass’s music, which is a powerful mix of vibrant, repetitive rhythms and some tender sequences.  Glass’s repetitive minimalist music is perfect for this opera which features lots of hindu chants.  The main singers were all terrific, with Richard Croft as Gandhi.  At times the music and singing just soared in a pulsating crescendo, with the sopranos dominating.

What makes this production - a joint one with ENO - really impressive is the staging.  The main raw materials for the set were corrugated iron and newsprint.  Well probably not corrugated iron, but something which looks like the stuff.  This was used to form the backdrop and changed to represent different urban scenes.  The newsprint was everywhere - on the floor, held up by actors, hanging down from buildings and even crumpled up into balls.  To augment the singers and chorus we had a puppetry group - the Skills Ensemble - to provide background action which helped to make sense of the different tableaux.  This included giant puppets and a couple of acrobats on stilts.  Everything was very bright and colourful.  

Though there were no subtitles, every so often some text illuminating the situation would appear, sometimes flashed onto newspaper sheets, and other times on the background walls.  So we were not completely in the dark.  However the music, the singing, the set and the puppetry all combined to ensure that the audience was spellbound from first to last.  Not an opera I would normally have gone to, but as part of the season ticket, I went and am very glad I did.

My Favourite Operas

Opera is probably my favourite among the performing arts.  I like pretty much all performing arts, but opera has that something extra.  What is it about opera then?  Well in opera you can get just about everything.  Orchestral music, singing, acting, weird and wonderful sets and costumes and  with luck, as an added bonus some ballet.  What more could anyone ask for?

But what makes for great opera?  First up must be the music.  It is after all the composer’s name that is most often associated with an opera.    The appeal of the music is primarily the vocal writing.  Just about anything the human voice can produce can be found in an opera - arias, duets, ensembles, chorus and more no doubt.  Some famous operas survive primarily or even solely due to the magic of the music.  The Pearl Fishers by Bizet springs to find.  An opera best known for its wonderful all male duet - Au fond du temple saint.

However there has to be more than just the music.  Otherwise we could just go to the concert hall.   What makes opera different is that there is to a greater or lesser extent some dramatic content.  Though the drama is vital to a great opera, it is still the quality of the music that makes the difference.  While a poor drama with great music will survive in some form or another, good drama with crap music will not survive.  Or if it does, it will survive as drama alone.  What makes great opera so special is this almost perfect marriage between drama and music.  Opera is, after all is said and done, a form of music theatre.

In working out which are my top ten favourite operas I find that all have their basis in the strength of the underlying story or drama.  While great music is always worth hearing on its own, a great opera needs to be based on good theatre.  

It is thus no surprise that two of my favourites are more or less straight adaptations of successful stage plays by Beaumarchais, while another two are based on plays by Shakespeare.  Three others were intimate collaborations between playwright and composer.  All my favourites make for compelling music theatre with wonderful music.

A little word about some operas not on my list, as they include some which I love dearly.  First up of course, this is my top ten.  For reasons of space, I decided to limit myself to ten operas.  As with any such list the merits of operas just outwith these ten are only marginally less than those in the listed ten.  Secondly I prefer operas that are not too long, however wonderful the music.  This does work against Wagner in particular, though I have included Die Meistersinger, where the comic elements help propel the action on stage a bit more than in some of his other wonderful operas.   Anyway here is the list of my very own favourite operas.

1. Le Nozze di Figaro                          Wolfgang Mozart
2. Carmen                                             Georges Bizet
3. Falstaff                                              Giuseppe Verdi
4. Otello                                                 Giuseppe Verdi
5. Die Zauberflöte                                Wolfgang Mozart
6. Des Contes d’Hoffmann                Jacques Offenbach
7. Il Barbiere di Siviglia                       Gioachino Rossini
8. Die Meistersinger                            Richard Wagner
9. Der Rosenkavalier                           Richard Strauss
10. Turandot                                           Giacomo Puccini

Opera Chic

Opera Chic is a wonderfully funny blog written by a young American woman who lives in Milan. She is a classically-trained musician and obviously the blog is mainly about opera. Though La Scala in Milan features a lot, she does cover opera from all over the world. And as the title of the blog suggests this is not your standard opera critique. The focus is more on the performers – the singers, divas, directors, conductors etc.

Even if you are not much interested in opera, or even if you are not interested at all you will still enjoy Opera Chic for its barbed and witty comments and the glamorous and sometimes not so glamorous photos of the jet set of the opera world. For opera lovers the site keeps us informed of all the latest gossip about the professional and private lives of the stars. For a typically bitchy piece on Russian soprano, Anna Netrebko, try this.

The blog is not all photos, OC (as she refers to herself) also includes some fascinating video clips. This piece features Elena Glurdjidze, a senior principal dancer with the English National Ballet. She was at a Chanel salon and gave an impromptu dance of the Dying Swan for Karl Langerfeld which he filmed. Unfortunately according to one of the comments it is the wrong music – Debussy's Clair de Lune – and the dancing and music don't equate. Looks lovely though. Another very funny clip is found in this post about how not to teach children to love classical music. OC suggests letting them watch the Muppets instead.

Opera Chic is not just about opera though. OC herself for some reason supports Inter Milan and she frequently puts up posts and photos of her favourite players, not always with the regulatory kit on. She is also mad about ballet dancer Robert Bolle who features even more regularly on her blog. This is obviously one for the girls, so here is the man himself in all his glory and you can make up your own mind about OC's infatuation.