NEW YORK – “Great Balls of Fire”! Shades of Jerry Lee Lewis and his flaming keyboards! The smash-mouth destruction of a honky-tonk pianino was merely the most obvious assault on the audience during performances of “Opera GAZ,” a co-production of Yara Arts Group and Kyiv’s Nova Opera on December 19, 20 and 22 at La MaMa Experimental Theater in New York City. By itself, the violent “pianicide” concluding this “opera” might be shrugged off as passé – a “happening” dating back to the 1950s. However, this show also evoked the bleak landscape of much of today’s opera and theater productions.
The background
Premiering in 1918, “Gas 1” was the middle drama of a symbolic trilogy of plays by leading German expressionist Georg Kaiser. The author explored themes of societal and economic conflicts in pre-World War I Germany within a billionaire’s factory; he created a story line around the billionaire’s son who wanted to help the workers, culminating in an explosion and a universal appeal for the “new man.”
“Gas 1” became quite popular in the original German and ensuing translations, but was promptly “reworked” in 1923 by Ukrainian avant-garde director Les Kurbas into an “opera” about an industrial explosion. (In 1925, Thea von Harbou also published her similarly-themed novel “Metropolis” which became the 1927 film, directed by her husband Fritz Lang. “Opera GAZ” shares several stylistic design traits with “Metropolis” the movie.)
Yara’s Virlana Tkacz was the concept originator and stage director of this production of “Opera GAZ.” She explained in interviews how Kaiser’s original play did not interest her, but rather Kurbas’ “transformation” of the German play. Apparently, Kurbas had already greatly reduced this play’s dialogue, while creating lots of choreography for the actors. He also had commissioned a new “industrial sounds” score with over 50 instrumentalists to accompany his “opera.”
By the time Gaz resurfaced at La MaMa as an “opera-dystopia,” almost all of Kaiser’s themes and plot threads had been jettisoned. In fact, with only a two page libretto, Ms. Tkacz’s “GAZ” had become non-verbal, non-narrative and plotless.
Consequently, the emphasis lay squarely on the music, composed by Nova Opera’s creative team of Roman Grygoriv and Illia Razumeiko, who also sang/acted the roles of Conductor and Pianist, respectively. Their score seesawed between pulse-driven hard rock and a straightforward minimalism with snatches of other contemporary techniques, some more ingenious than others.
Nevertheless, the energy and precision of the singers and instrumentalists were undeniable. (It would be intriguing, however, to hear this ensemble tackle theater works with real musical substance, like Benjamin Britten’s “Curlew River” or “Prodigal Son”).
The Nova Opera performers comprised an ensemble of six vocalists, several keyboards, cello and contrabass, percussionists, and players on assorted wind and brass instruments. The set designer was Waldemart Klyuzko, the choreographer was Simon Mayer, costumes were by Tetiana Sherstiuk, and lights by Jeff Nash.
A synopsis
Reminiscent of “Metropolis,” “Opera GAZ” plays out on a mobile set of glistening skeletal pipes, representing a factory where singers in HazMat suits shuffle around like faceless robots. At center stage, a manic pianist constantly plucks away at a prepared upright, while a manic conductor gyrates and capers, leading the players until it all finally spirals out of control.
Along the way, the audience is treated to several episodes, starting with almost a quarter of an hour of hammering on metal pipes by the singers. This is followed by a caricature of Donizetti/Verdi ensembles, set almost entirely to the words “Che bello, GAZ!” Less clever was the performers’ juvenile mockery of opera singer stereotypes.
A “Duetto” (about a spring-like utopia) depicted the yearning between two workers. Here, the different elements seemed to work at cross-purposes: the halting musical phrases (“Spring awakes…”) lacked joy at the season of rebirth and life. And if the intent was to juxtapose the ironic text – “Why won’t they sing fiery songs with the collective?” – it did not work. Opera exists to set words and emotions to music; repeating the same few words over and over is a regression to primitivism.
As the intensifying “Workers’ Hymn” careened to its climax, the frenzied Pianist began to pound the keyboard with his feet, telegraphing an imminent annihilation of his pianino.
The audience was soon granted some quiet time: three singers chanting harmonies (set to dismembered German syllables) into silver pipes. Apparently this was meant to suggest a hurdy-gurdy instrument, winding down and dying.
With an allusion to the leering puppet’s ghost at the end of Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” the Pianist twitched back and forth on the silent stage, with red eyes glowing. This closed the show.
Evgeniy Maloletka
Intermedia-machina in “Opera GAZ.”
Regietheater
“Opera GAZ” is a typical example of Regietheater, or director’s theater, which ultimately stems from the assault on reason itself, known as deconstruction. Simply put, its convoluted head games mean we can no longer derive specific meanings from words, but rather everything is open to “interpretation.” Therefore, the director-as-guiding-light can transform, omit or add anything he or she imagines.
In a previous interview, Ms. Tkacz had stated she was “drawing on” Kaiser’s play to create an “original artwork” for an audience “of our times and our situation” to show what Kurbas accomplished. She revealed: “I am trying to present this opera in such a way that people who cannot read music will understand it.”
Ultimately, what was gained by deconstructing Kaiser’s play to make it “of our times” and so that “people who cannot read music will understand it”? Did both Kurbas and Ms. Tkacz assume Kaiser’s play is so dramatically limited that it couldn’t speak to us today on its own terms? Do audiences so lack imagination that they can’t find any meaning unless it’s literally about them?
Kaiser’s idealistic vision was the regeneration of humanity. The explicit message delivered in “Metropolis” is “The Mediator between Brain and Hands must be the Heart!” And “Opera GAZ”?
The program notes allude to a futuristic gas, industrial workers, and “selfish concerns that screen looming problems, eventually unleashing their rage.” An audience dodging splintered ivories and pedals might well grasp that part about “unleashing rage.” But where were nuanced portrayals of the “selfish concerns” or “looming problems?” If there were any, they remained buried in the program notes.
Vlad Troitsky, showman
To complete the picture, consider the man who founded Nova Opera. Vlad Troitsky is a clever Russian businessman (owning shops in central Kyiv), who metamorphosed into an impresario-showman and now promotes himself as a culture-guru in Ukraine. He proclaims his Dakh Ukrainian Center for Contemporary Theater Arts as “the best theatrical school in Ukraine, which develops the best musicians and actors.” Mr. Troitsky has a pragmatic sense of what can succeed in pop shows on the artistic fringes; he created what he calls the “ethno-chaos” ensemble Dakha-Brakha and the “freak-cabaret” Dakh Daughters.
However, in the realm of music and theater, his opinions are more suspect. He disclosed, “For me [traditional] theater created bizarre feelings of loathing… Normal people don’t go to the theater.”
Mr. Troitsky quite simply wants to break the present theatrical code and to radically introduce Europeanization. Echoing Ms. Tkacz, he also wants to create a “new language for opera, more approachable for people of all ages and receptivity, accessible to unprepared listeners.”
Indeed, all the other “operas” Mr. Troitsky produced with Nova Opera (like their “opera-circus” “Babylon,” “opera-improvisation” “Coriolanus” and “horror-opera” “Hamlet”) are more like spectacles with added sound effects – simplified for “unprepared” publics and offering a visceral, if superficial, entertainment.
As just one example, his 2018 spectacle with Nova Opera was the “grand-opera” “Nero,” set in a shipyard at Mariupol and featuring a “ballet” of towering loading cranes. The high point was when a 100-foot cross surfaced from the brine so that after the show, “everyone could walk on water,” according to Mr. Troitsky.
What the audience gets is a stark diet of deconstruction and titillating effects, much like convulsive rockers smashing guitars by the caseload.
Upon exiting the theater and spotting the next sacrificial keyboard in the wings, one sadly wondered if pianinos would now become that next endangered species.