sigmastolen: (mallow)
[personal profile] sigmastolen
Last night P. and I went to see The Fly at the LA Opera -- directed by David Cronenberg, libretto by David Henry Hwang, and composed by Howard Shore. And commissioned by Placido Domingo and the LA Opera.

Well, it was riveting, but not because of the music, which was mostly heavy and monotonous. Oh, Howard, what kills me is that I know you can do better -- consider the EPIC score of the Lord of the Rings movies, which are exciting, and quite delicate when it is appropriate. Instead, the entire opera was loud, heavy, uninteresting, and unchanging, which was quite exhausting to listen to. P. ended up tuning it out, mostly. And the setting of the words was just -- clumsy. The rhythms didn't seem to sit right, and there wasn't a melody in the entire show -- vocal lines alternated between single-note fixation and wild disjointedness. P. lays at least some of the blame with the English language, which she claims is unwieldy, but I would say that Britten and Adams managed rather well... There was a lot of material for the chorus, too, though I wouldn't necessarily call it good. A lot of it was them being the voice of the computer, which meant monotonous chords, plus some commentary on the lives of a) scientists and b) local dive-bar trash. We talked to my teacher briefly, and he said it wasn't really much fun to play, either.

Fortunately, the night wasn't a total wash. As I said before, I was riveted, completely captivated through the whole thing. The drama was very well-paced, kudos to Hwang, and the principals were quite good. Ruxandra Donose, the mezzo playing Veronica, the leading lady, had a lovely voice, and I was vastly entertained by her slightly comedic overacting and the slight accent she retained in the "declaimed" lines (she is Romanian). And Daniel Okulitch, the bass-baritone playing ill-fated scientist Seth Brundle, was positively dreamy. I tend to favour lower frequencies, and his voice was also very lovely, but damn that was a fine specimen of man. And he spent a surprising amount of time in States of Undress, but I also appreciated the well-cut fifties-esque costumes. There's quite a lot of sex in The Fly, did you know? P. was rather discomfited by it. UNEXPECTED NAKED SINGERS! haha. Seriously, though, Okulitch is rather gorgeous (for pictures, go HERE). Z will be disappointed he missed his full-frontal nudity, if nothing else. Also, his acting was slightly more subtle, and involved several adorable -- tics, almost -- that screamed "NERD" to me, and I can't figure out why they were so familiar.

The Telepods, too, were very well done -- I spent quite a lot of the night trying to figure out how the trapdoor mechanism worked, to no avail. P. and I were quite impressed. The set and costumes were gorgeous, too -- the Lab was the main location, apparently in some old warehouse on a dock, very industrial-looking, with various desks, pool tables, and such wheeled on and off mostly by the singers who were to be in the scene. I was especially entertained when the tenor, the editor of a science periodical, was wheeled on in his desk chair by a couple of lady scientists. And the fly costume and the inside-out things were positively gruesome! :D I was also totally charmed by its geekiness. I mean, it's a sci-fi opera. With sex! and death! and transformation! and singing computers! The audience clapped the first time Brundle managed to send a living thing through the Telepods, clapped for the success of the technology, just the same as they would (and did) for an aria! It was fantastic.

P. and I have decided we need to watch the movies. All hail the New Flesh!

-----

In other news, I have had a brilliant idea: LOLchestra! It does what it says on the tin. Come on, I mean it! I already have a couple ideas, involving the "this thread is relevant to my interests" and "i has a bukkit" tropes. Seriously. I am going to make this happen.
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