Opera

Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to see the Philadelphia premier of the new opera Cyrano by David DiChiera and Bernard Uzan. Although I have been fortunate to have already seen quite a few operas - at the Met, in Toronto, Philadelphia, and Washington DC (not a bad bunch) - this was the first "modern" opera I had ever seen. I went in excited, but perhaps a tad skeptical. If I was going to go see a Modern opera, I had been thinking along the lines of Einstein on the Beach, or even (yikes!) Wozzeck. It was hard to imagine Cyrano's pithy wit set in atonal chords, but I have seen weirder.

All in all, I did enjoy the opera. The music was lovely and surprisingly tuneful. I was disappointed that it ended up being quite conventional, but it certainly complimented the overall feel of the opera's traditional, in-period setting. While the set was impressive, but also conventional, there were moments of staging that were quite inventive and interesting. I especially enjoyed the production's attention to the story's rich, self-conscious engagement with literature, art, and expression. The opening scene was strikingly metatheatrical. Placing a stage on the stage, the chorus spend most of the first scene with their back to the audience, attention turned toward the metaperformance and their role as audience on the stage. This was a very effective way of sneaking Cyrano in behind the staged audience, but up front, in center of the opera's audience. The marriage scene was beautifully staged and when the curtain opened on the battle field scene, there were audible sounds of amazement from the audience - the staging was beautiful and haunting. Overall, acting and singing was quite solid. The leads, Marian Pop and Evelyn Pollock, were great - Pop as Cyrano was especially excellent.

I had forgotten how interesting Cyrano's story is - it's smarter and more provocative than its watered-down, historical romance label suggests. It must be one of the most famous studies of ugliness in Western literature, and a deep mediation on questions of aesthetic value. Cyrano's sorrow stems not simply from his ugliness, but equally from his personal love and devotion to beauty - artistic, linguistic, personal, and moral. While the story has cliched elements - beauty is on the inside, kids - Cyrano's pitiful underestimation of that cliche is poignantly juxtaposed against his own unfailing belief in the power of beauty, however it is defined - in narrative perhaps?, as an essential foundation of life and love.