CircOpera2.0: Helsinki Opera presses the Reset button
Surprisingly, in the middle of his series totem Là ci darem la Mano aria, while being seduced by slavery Don Giovanni, Zerlina was sawed in half, and also locked in the trunk by the gesticulating magician. The main microphones meant that the protests of his lyrical voice continued uninterrupted.
So much for sharing it with the gang. Readers still keen on New Year’s equality cocktails will be pleased to find that misfit love Don’s goose was also boiled. He went to his own cabinet – ten meters away. Knives out the sliders cut him up and before you could say, “Masetto’s, accold!”, Don G was singing with Zerlina – literally – in six-part harmony. Legs above head, apparently wearing Zerlina’s dress.
By now she had figured out his dastardly plans and was wearing pants. Poor Masetto, Zerlina’s unfortunate, peasant.
I guess you could say when after a few awkward door opening and clever slider manipulations the pair finally made it out unscathed and in their original costumes the two of them were a team again. They finished the seduction aria from Mozart Don Giovanni, traditionally, with a great voice.
What is happening? New Year’s hallucinations caused by strong drink? Shame on the thought. Welcome to Helsinki’s bold attempt to reset opera for the next generation of audiences. CircOpera 2.0 The intent is to provide an updated Opera experience for tech-savvy iPhone clickers who might think Opera isn’t for them. #opera maybe.
The idea is to reboot the traditional offering by emphasizing dance, bringing out enhanced sound production, slipping in a couple of weird avatars and adding circus elements to the show.
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When I heard about the attempts of the Finnish National Opera to make the opera “Greater. More intense. More magical”, I thought the idea so terrible that it cannot be ignored. So I braved a series of wildly improbable connecting flights to Helsinki’s world of near-eternal darkness for a “full-on adventure trip to the world where opera meets modern circus”.
I remember as a little boy being taken to auto shows where concept cars were eye-popping but so outrageous—finned, aerodynamic monsters capable of billions of MPH—they never went into production. Like British Leyland’s unlikely Austin Allegro with its square steering wheel and inability to move without falling apart…..Wait! Sorry. BL really did it. I remember working a few round pubs in the West End of Glasgow in the 70s.
for CirOpera2.0, think more Lamborghini Terzo Millennio 2017. This work directed by Jere Erki, in collaboration Opera Beyond, The annual conference held in Helsinki was slick, engaging and forced fud-dud traditionalists – me – to reevaluate the possibilities of combining surround video, surround sound and new art forms to bring new life to an operatic medium that is challenging to attract. the next generation audience.
Does it work? Let the market be the judge. Helsinki has 660,000 inhabitants. Finland 5.5 million. Eight performances CircOpera 2.0 in December and January were sold out. 1,305 seats. That means 10,000 Finnish reindeer traveling to the capital in pitch darkness and arctic conditions over the course of eight weeks.
Scandi opera attracts an audience in proportion to the population roughly the same as the long-established Scottish Opera. Currently, New York’s Metropolitan Opera has an average occupancy rate of 60%. Durable, long-lasting. No one can afford to ignore the novel The Story of Gathering the Public in Helsinki.
But is this a serious opera? My jury is out. Some shows worked. Some don’t. It wasn’t all opera at first. The program was sprinkled with random visual repetitions of orchestral works. The beginning was by Richard Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra, made famous in the 1960s moon landing programs and Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2002, A space odyssey.
The opera’s chosen ones were far from reliable, well-known favorites. This did not ring true to the populist gallery. Rameau rondeau, Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet and Offenbach Tales of Hoffman presented alongside Puccini Madame Butterfly, to Mascagni Cavalleria rusticana and Deliben Lakmé. There were twenty-three presentations in total.
So what did the circus add, except the top view Don Giovanni? First, movement. Sanna Silvennoinen, of Circo Aereo, a Finnish circus company with a global reach and – literally – sky-high reputation that worked wonders with trapeze and high wire stunts, occasionally involving singers in dizzying stunts that boggled the mind. Hanging from your hair does wonders for falsetto. Theatricality was always central, but nothing was done just for the sake of the play. It required dramatic intent.
Some sequences like Lakmé, featuring dancers instead of circus acts. Choreographer Reina Wäre had a good atmosphere. The beginning of world chaos Also sprach Zarathustra was really wild. The Madame Butterfly the performance is beautifully moving. Why? Because the dancers covered the singers, adding to the emotions expressed and adding to the sound and music.
And that’s why opera began – in 1598. Combining all known art forms – the human voice, orchestral music and ballet sets, Jacobo Perin Daphne – mostly lost – set the scene for cinematic performances most famously carried out by Monteverdi, Rameau, and passed down from generation to generation, always using whatever exciting new technique was invented.
Hence the thunder machines, the flying angels, the sets too elaborate to work in Wagner’s Bayreuth, and the magnificent lighting. What started as candlelight turned into the limelight, and is now a “not for the epileptic” flashing strobe-fest.
Opera has always, always, always been the platform of the performing artist, where all the senses are involved and technical innovations are used shamelessly. Helsinki Opera is simply today’s most daring innovator.
In 2019, when I attended the Metropolitan Opera’s entire Ring Cycle, a magnificent piano-swirling set that cost the Met $35 million and now lies crippled in a Canadian warehouse, I felt like I was witnessing the dinosaur’s final strike. tail. The era of the pursuit of the play, funded by a bottomless pit of dollars, was coming to an end. CircOpera 2.0 is the answer.
Helsinki is a great place to experience opera. Built in 2003, the house has something that few Opera Houses worldwide take care of. The acoustics, which are excellent, are designed to be crowd-friendly. No queuing for toilets. Abundantly and everywhere. No waiting in the cloakroom either. The entrance hall has about a dozen arches marked in alphabetical order, each with its own attendant. Getting rid of and picking up this essential 100lb reindeer hide has never been easier.
Why hasn’t anyone else thought of this? No queues for refreshments. Lots of service points that allow you to enjoy your breaks rather than spend them in grumpy frustration.
This season’s program is also more important CircOpera2.0 is ambitious. Four main stage productions. Wagner’s Siegfried, Puccini’s Turandots, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and Shostakovich Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. All look like visually stunning productions, but there is no circus performer to be seen!
So it is CircOpera 2.0 An Obama-style Russian reset button that is likely to accomplish little? Or is it Johannes Kastaja’s moment for the opera company’s various “Come to Jesus” funding challenges.
Some of the circus turns were exciting but added little to the artistic experience. The huge cantilevered boom where the acrobats ran madly across the crazy swing mechanism and performed somersaults did not add to Prokofiev’s romanticism. Romeo and Juliet.
The audience clearly loved the experience. A woman I spoke to during the break told me this was her third visit. When the avatar invited me in, I had an instinctive feeling that this was an encounter with the future. Helsinki’s take on the circus-opera mix may have veered into occasional excess, but it all made for an engaging audience experience.
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