|
Omnia
Vincit Amor; Et Nos Cedamus Amori. Love conquers all;
let us, too, surrender to love… said Virgil, and we surrendered
willingly to this brilliantly staged and completely mad production
of La Didone the other night. This
strangely-worked piece of opera-theatre with a crazy streak that
runs through it is ambitious, but somehow manages to succeed where
it overreaches. The Wooster Group's La Didone is a
marvelous simultaneous juxtapositioning of Cavalli's La Didone
(a 17th century opera based on the Aeneid, but with a happy ending
- Dido does not kill herself over Aeneas but instead marries
Jarbas, a neighboring king) and Planet of the Vampires (Terrore
nello spazio) an Italian science fiction film from the 60s
replete with space zombies. That they are Italian in origin
is perhaps the only thing that unites the two…and this
production becomes an essay in cross-pollination, overlap, and
side-by-side synthesis. In this futuristic metallic meshing,
lines and scenes entangle, interweave and knit together, the words
to both opera and film scrolling side-by-side on screens above the
players. It wasn't difficult at all for an audience used to
modern multitasking to keep track of everything going on - and the
movie playing out on screens and stage served as contrast and
foil, and seemed only to add to the opera. Virgil,
who sang of arms and the man, is in fact the man who holds the
production together - if this work rests on the Cavalli opera,
then the opera owes everything to him…and the beautiful Hai-Ting
Chinn with the marvelous voice is the woman who centers the chaos
- she was perfect as the vulnerable yet strong Dido, giving the
production depth and nuance as she strutted around in her
marvelous costume (which we must admit we wanted for ourselves -
dramatic space-age collar and glittering gleam of leather softened
by an asymmetric gathered violet skirt of some net-like
material). The
production has its rough edges, but is so successful in its
ambition that all we can say is - go down to Dumbo and take in the
spectacle…it runs just through April 26.
See:
The
La Didone, St. Ann's Warehouse, Dumbo, Brooklyn
Tags:
theatre
broadway
Permalink
Save
to del.icio.us
Digg
This!
Become
a Fan
on Facebook!
|
