PENELOPE / The Opera People / Review

PENELOPE

The Opera People

Esplanade Annexe Studio

Saturday (15 January 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 January 2022 with the title "Girl power in pared down opera".

 

When one thinks of opera, visions of heroic singers, humongous casts, epic sets and lavish costumes come to mind. At the opposite end of the spectrum is chamber opera, with production pared down to the minimum, supported by modest budgets and keen minds striving to do something different. Ambition, without compromising on quality, has been the vision of groups like New Opera Singapore, L’Arietta and The Opera People.

 

Plaudits go to The Opera People for even attempting to stage American composer-conductor Andre Previn’s final work, the opera Penelope based on Homer’s Odyssey, left unfinished when he died in 2019. With libretto in English by Tom Stoppard, the project was realised by Previn’s copyist David Fetherolf and premiered later in the same year with soprano Renee Fleming in the title role.

 

The Opera People’s production went one step further by merging the opera with English composer Benjamin Britten’s 1939 song cycle Les Illuminations, with words by Arthur Rimbaud sung in French. This odd mix might not have worked if not for the skilful curation of sung and spoken texts undertaken by the production team with stage director Edith Podesta.

 

The musical idiom of both works is tonal, and especially lyrical in the case of Britten, which made for quite seamless transitions between the set-pieces. Previn’s instrumentation was scored for string quartet and piano, while Britten’s was wholly for strings. All these were comfortably accommodated by the Wayfarer Sinfonietta conducted by Lien Boon Hua.

Photo: Moonrise Studio

 

Its story was simple: the trial of Penelope’s unwavering faith in her husband Odysseus twenty-year absence while fighting the Trojan War and his dangerous journey back. Penelope was personified by three women, sopranos Teng Xiang Ting and Felicia Teo Kaixin, and actor-narrator Koh Wan Ching, representing her heart, body and mind respectively.

 

There was however a clear delineation of roles, with Teng singing only Previn, and Teo singing just Britten. Fanfare, the first of Britten’s ten songs, opened the show boldly with, “J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage” or “I alone have the key to this savage parade”.

 

This proclamation would reappear two further times, being a recurring theme but sung differently on each occasion. With this, Penelope established her self-determination and steely resolve. Although liberties were taken with reordering the sequence of Britten’s songs to suit the narrative, this gambit did not turn out to be too jarring.    

 

Through the action and music, one became privy to Penelope’s uncertainties, fears and anxieties. When will he return, if ever? If not, should I move on? All this in the face of mounting pressure, such as the plaints of a cynical son and hundred suitors. These were laid bare, symbolised by the women shedding their forbidding trench-coats to reveal snug maroon gowns.

 

Penelope stays true to the end, as the old man who puts her to the test is none other than Odysseus himself. This affirmation of female empowerment shone through in this well conceived and excellently executed 70 minutes of musical theatre.    

WAGNER'S DIE WALKÜRE / Orchestra of the Music Makers / Review

WAGNER’S DIE WALKÜRE
Soloists with Orchestra of the Music Makers
Esplanade Concert Hall
Sunday (5 January 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 January 2019 with the title "Wagner's Valkyrie a long but enjoyable ride".

Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung has finally arrived in Singapore. The brains behind this ambitious undertaking were however neither Singapore Lyric Opera nor Singapore Symphony Orchestra, but the 12-year-old volunteer outfit, Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM) and its music director Chan Tze Law. Given OMM’s track record of performing Mahler symphonies and mounting semi-staged productions of Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel and Bernstein’s Mass, the Ring Cycle seemed inevitable, a matter of when and not if.

Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) is the second opera of the four-part cycle, and arguably its most familiar instalment. Comprising three acts sung in German and running close to six hours (inclusive of two long intermissions), this might seem a test of endurance for performers and audience alike, but its minutes passed eventfully and seemingly effortlessly.

There were two long intermissions of

30 and 90 minutes between the acts, 

and the audience was called to return when

OMM brass played the Valkyrie theme. 

Put this down to Wagner’s genius in building up dramatic edifices and his spectacular music, but this semi-staged effort directed by Edith Podesta and conducted by Chan had many plusses to its advantage. Employing a full symphony orchestra (with the luxury of four harps) rather than a mere pit band meant that the rich and opulent orchestration was heard in its full glory.

All the singers were in costume, with their facial expressions projected on a large screen, so they had to be great actors as well. Onscreen English transliterations also helped with following the plot and all its intrigues. The set design was simple but excellent, with a long dinner table placed centrestage for Act I, and two flights of stairs behind the orchestra leading skyward to Valhalla.   

The main cast of six singers has a wealth of experience in Wagner, with the tender chemistry between star-crossed and incestuous lovers Siegmund (tenor Bryan Register) and Sieglinde (soprano Lee Bisset) being immediately palpable. Just as apparent were their antagonism to Hunding (bass-baritone Daniel Sumegi), Sieglinde’s menacing and seething husband. The First Act’s love duet was literally a runaway success.

Similarly, one could easily sense the prickles between the celestials Wotan (baritone Warwick Fyfe) and Fricka (mezzo-soprano Caitlin Hulcup). How conflicted the hen-pecked Wotan became, caught between love for his earthly offspring and heavenly responsibilities, made him the most human character of this melodrama. His nearly fraying voice in Wotan’s Farewell and Magic Fire Music at the opera’s end attested to a genuine world-weariness.

Brünnhilde (5th from right)

and her sisters.

The eponymous Valkyrie was Brünnhilde (soprano Alwyn Mellor), a stunning presence who elicited much sympathy for her self-assurance and independent mindedness. Her eight sisters, including Singaporean singers Janani Sridhar and Jade Tan Shi Yu, shone in Act 3’s famous Ride of the Valkyries, possibly the cycle’s most iconic and recognisable sequence. There were no flying horses but costumes resembling jedi knights with fascist leather jackboots did the trick.

Given Walküre’s good box office showing and the tumultuous applause that greeted it, more Wagner operas are expected. OMM has already announced Das Rheingold, the first Ring cycle opera, for August 2021. One can hardly wait.