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Entertainment
A phenomenal experience
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No screen projection, part or whole, can ever match the splendours of a live opera, says GOWRI RAMNARAYAN, who witnessed one at Edinburgh recently.
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FROM MONGOLIAN yodelling to the Mexican guitar, we can access every kind of music today, in any part of the world, and without stirring out of our homes. But for a well-rounded experience of the opera, you still need to be physically present where it is performed. Recorded versions can never equal its three dimensional impact in the theatre.
To most Indians, ``opera'' is not so much an art experience as a verbal metaphor. Our literary critics may talk of the operatic flavours in a novel. Film critics use the word to describe the melodramatic song-and-dance potboilers churned out by Bollywood. (``Dil Chahta Hai," a national award winner of this year, actually shot a lush sequence from the tragedy of Troilus and Cressida at the Sydney Opera House — to demonstrate the power of love to its Philistine hero!). But of course, no screen projection, part or whole, can ever match the splendours of a live opera. And a performing arts festival in the West is your best bet to attend several operas within a short time span.
The Edinburgh International Festival 2002 offered variety to satisfy tastes traditional and modern: ``The Turn of the Screw'' (Benjamin Britten, directed by Luc Bondy); Stravinsky's ''Oedipus Rex'', an explosive extravaganza by the Canadian Opera Company; and two Wagner classics in the Scottish Opera's ``Siegfried'' from the famous Ring Cycle, and the less performed ``Parsifal" conducted by Claudio Abbado and directed by Peter Stein.
Five hours of ``Parsifal'' was a phenomenal experience in the rapt, overflowing theatre. The audience breathed vibrant energy in responding to every scene from their nerves' ends. The two intervals provided another side to the high seriousness within the hall. Men and women spilled out, occupied every inch of space in foyers and staircases, opened cornucopian baskets, and proceeded to picnic on sandwich, pizza and pie. (A seasoned campaigner informed this writer that such solid sustenance was a must for the rigours of opera). The event was not entertainment, but a socio-cultural rite!
``Parsifal" (German, with English sub-titles) has an obscure theme. Drawn from the medieval legend of knights in an austere, self-denying fortress in the middle of nowhere, guarding the youth-restoring cup that Christ drank from at his Last Supper, this Christian opera offers a strong contrast to the more famous works of Richard Wagner based on pagan, Germanic myths. Young Parsifal is the guileless Fool who wanders into the Grail domain, and is prostrated with guilt after killing an innocent woodland swan. He is revived by the woman Kundry, who plays a dual role. She is a faithful servant of the knights, and a sensual siren to lead them astray at the command of the wicked Klingsor. Parsifal escapes their wiles when he catches the Holy spear flung at him by the villain and makes the sign of the cross with it. After years of desolate wanderings the hero returns on a Good Friday, saves Kundry's soul, and heals the Grail King Amfortas with the holy spear by closing his wound of sin. The rebellion of the knights is thus quelled, the Holy Grail is revealed again, guilt is washed away, grace and redemption light up the world. Parsifal is crowned king of the castle.
The sets and lighting resembled Bollywood dreams: opulent, spectacular, but offering no scope for the imagination. However, the music was so commanding that it held you in thrall through the long hours. The orchestra was unobtrusive, supportive, and evoked the changes of location, situation and mood. It was left to the voices of Thomas Moser as the hero, Violeta Urmana as the mysterious Kundry, and the reverberant, full-bodied strength of Hans Tschammer as the wise counsellor, to bring the warmth of human fire to the cold metaphysics. Yet ``Parsifal'' did not linger in the mind, though it riveted attention during the performance. Why? Because neither the flat characters, nor the elitist subject could evoke the compassion that it strove to reach. The opera teetered uneasily between the naive and the abstruse. Parsifal's own sufferings were too vague for our grasp and identification. The Grail could not become a universal metaphor transcending race, time and space. It remained an exclusive symbol, remote and alien, rather than welcoming and inclusive. You were confronted with mists rather than the clarity of faith. Such thoughts stoke more reflection. Don't they remind us of the essential requirements for all works of art, whether West or East of the sun?
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