BRRR’S AND BRAVOS IN OPERA, SOCIALLY DISTANCED
Necessity is anew the mother of invention. Even in opera premieres, a tradition dating back four centuries.
When singers and orchestras couldn’t congregate during the pandemic, Opera Parallèle brought to bear imagination with a capital I. They went at their challenge piecemeal with an arresting experiment in animation. Using adaptation techniques from robotics, they brought on well-drawn faces, closeups and graphic-novel formats for Joby Talbot’s one-act mountain-climbing saga reworked for streaming, “Everest,” based on the Dallas Opera world premiere production of 2015.
This short graphic novel opera is destined to evoke both brrr’s and bravos among home viewers.
This is not the last word in operatic animation, but it’s a salient experimental breakthrough, as navigated via Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel. Figures inside a graphic novel suddenly smile and blink and start to sing as if on film—all of it drawn by artists, banking on electronic sensors on the faces of live singers. That approach is not consistent—immobile black-and-white 2-D figures still abound. But the transition to a fully animated opera by some one seems right around the corner.
As part of this vocal miracle, Opera Parallèle maintained social distancing to the Nth degree, recording the orchestra in London and the singers in Oakland, about 5,000 miles apart. Yes, Dr. Fauci, it’s absolutely exemplary social distancing!
Based on actual events from an ill-fated 1996 climb, the one-act opus deals with two mountaineers running into trouble trying to ascend and survive the world’s highest mountain. We might have expected tough sledding ahead, given the grave accent on the word “Parallèle.”
In their frigid bivouac, on what may or may not be their last climb, Rob uses his smartphone to call home to his beloved Jan (Sasha Cooke) in an endearing love duet. During their high-altitude repose with the oxygen supply failing, the crisis is vividly depicted in a tumultuous orchestral outburst, following the exquisitely poetic libretto by Gene Sheer, already well recognized for his work with composer Jake Heggie.
Talbot’s music is straight-forward and ingratiating, able to convey both the couple’s long-distance tenderness as well as the fury and tumult of the storms high on the intimidating peak. The focus is on the male climbers Rob (Nathan Granner), Beck (Kevin Burdette) and Doug (Hadleigh Adams), with the tenor Rob working to spur them ever onward despite the growing adversity. The impact is powerful, with the many closeups providing a viewing intimacy and impact impossible on stage. Indeed the message was so penetrating I found myself buttoning up my coat reacting to the storm at the recent screening.
A much-needed flashback scene enabled mezzo Cooke to show her considerable vocal mettle, back on the home front. References are made to the historic precedent of Ruth Mallory awaiting word as the Briton George Mallory ascended into the clouds some 800 ft. beneath the summit in 1922, never to be heard from again.
Effective choruses had been whittled down here to a vocal ensemble, providing clarity and agility to the production. The overall effect of this graphic-novel “Everest,” though at times sketchy viewing with its colorless scenes, is a vivid and portable adaptation.
As Opera Parallèle’s conductor-director Nicole Paiement explains, “This is pushing the boundary of what opera could be in the 21stcentury.” Her motive is to bring in new audiences, not to replace conventional opera. And the adroit move toward animation reflects no mere return-to-normal, but rather, one would hope, a 2021 move toward better-than-normal in many disciplines.
A PERSONAL SIDELIGHT—My group climb up a peak 11,000 feet lower than Everest years ago brought home the wonderworld of glacier-dominated high elevation as well as disorientation and nascent danger. A multiplication exercise at the top proved full of errors when later checked, showing cognitive impairment. And I fell sound asleep sitting down on an isolated rocky stool in the cold, fortunately awakened by a party member that followed. The hazards of that beautiful wonderworld are all too real, folks.
“Everest,” a graphic novel opera by composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Sheer, screened and streaming by Opera Parallèle under conductor Nicole Paiement, Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel. Adapted from the 2015 Dallas Opera staged original. 65 minutes. Available as rental from thedallasopera.TV.
