Sitting In The Dark, Hoping To Understand

In the midst of all the talk about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I heard a blurb on WFMT about a new production of Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow,” just in time for the holiday season. The story involves a debt-ridden country attempting to capture the millions of a wealthy widow in order to save their economy. A contrived stimulus package. This has a strange ring of reality about it.

Opera and reality?

Now while I personally enjoy opera, I am the first to admit that there is nothing created by humankind that is more bizarre. Think about it: singing a dialogue, generally in a foreign language, then reflecting upon this dialogue with soaring melodies that challenge the bounds of the vocal physiology. All the while, this supported by a symphonic ensemble, a stage crew, prompters, lighting technicians, and an adoring public prone to wearing capes and peering through the darkness of the theatre via little golden binoculars held in place by “mother of pearl” sticks. (Okay, so I have exaggerated a bit about the capes and the opera glasses. But, only slightly.)

When people have expressed reluctance to attend opera because of not understanding the language, I have always insisted that even without knowing the language, there will be enough happening on stage to give one a basic understanding of the story.

After attending a performance of Kodály’s “Székely Fonó” (The Transylvanian Spinning Room), I may wish to amend that.

My encounter with this opera took place at the grand Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. This is a house built in the late 19th Century in a Renaissance/Baroque style and a lavish tribute to the operatic art form. Like opera, itself, everything about this palace for performance is a bit “over the top.” Since the Kodály work was new to me, I attempted with no success to research the story in advance. Having failed, I was reassured by my mantra to others: “there will be enough happening on the stage to give a basic understanding of the story.”

In this staging, the house lights lowered and you heard the sound of a steam locomotive pulling to a stop. Stage lights revealed several figures in black trench coats and black hats standing in front of the curtain. As the idle train hissed the sound of escaping steam, two figures divested their dark coats and hats to reveal heavily decorated Hungarian folk dress. In an immediate blackout, the train is heard to pull away and in a bit, stop again. The lights go up on the same group and two more people divest revealing brightly-colored folk costumes. This continues until the whole group stands before us in their traditional native dress. At this point, the music began and the curtain opened onto a large room filled with spinning machines. In the background there was a simulated forest with various wooden bridges on and over which people in black trench coats sometimes appeared. (Remember the train?) Downstage, near the edge is a box from which objects/props were removed from time to time. There was a bridge across the orchestra into the audience over which people sometimes left. I don’t recall if anyone ever returned from that direction. People sang. People embraced. People sometimes looked really sad. A couple of times I caught the glimpse of a smile. (Someone either happy or out of character.)

Despite watching everything intently, I have no idea what this opera is about. I can only say that everyone who started out singing was still singing in the end and seemed happy about things. The people in black trench coats were no longer hovering ominously in the background. The music was up-tempo.

Since the month-long wedding of Fernando and Christine back in 1589, opera has captured the imaginations of music lovers. My good friend, Mike, recently purchased season tickets to the opera. Having grown up in a less urbane part of the Midwest where there were not a lot of opportunities to hear opera, he wanted to experience a new musical idiom. Sadly, Mike’s first encounter was opera on hormones: Wagner! Some of these operas last for days with nothing even approaching reality.

Once, at a performance of “La Bohème” at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, a stage that boasts the largest proscenium opening of any opera house in the world, the curtain opened to reveal the humble loft of the starving artists of the story. In this design, rather than being a small hovel amid the Paris skyline, this loft encompassed the whole of the vast opening of the Lyric stage.

The older lady seated to my left whisper loudly to her friend beyond. “It’s no wonder they are so poor; trying to heat that place.”

Lady, it’s opera. Like our economy, don’t expect anything reasonable. Just sit in the dark and hope to understand.