Experimental Opera: A Parking Lot for Hyacinths

A Parking Lot for Hyacinths

The Deseret Experimental Opera Company

BYU

August 9, 2013

Disclaimer: I am just an amateur musician so what follows will be general observations from the point of view of an average audience member and not a formal critique of the music.

I walked into this knowing absolutely nothing about it other than the fact that it was experimental opera and that it was opening night.  After wandering around the construction, finally finding a way to the visitor’s parking lot, and speed walking to the theater (we made it on time!) we got to sit and wait for the performance to start…over 20 minutes late.  I know things happen, but, guys, we dashed.  We didn’t meander.  We dashed.  And we should have meandered. 

But enough complaining.  I should start with what I loved: being in the theater and experiencing the energy and excitement of people creating something.  We were all doing something new tonight and that was energizing!  We were sitting on row B so I had an unobstructed view of an incredible violin solo.  She sat maybe two feet away from me and blew me away with her precision and passion.  I could have left after the violin solo and felt like I got my money’s worth.  But then I would have missed my other favorite part: Michelle Alexander.  Wow.  She was engaging both in her speaking parts and in her singing parts.  She was hands-down the best thing on stage.  Part of that may be that she had the most lyrical of the parts (and I respond more to a more traditional sound) but, really, the main thing was that she had a powerful voice and was very confident.  I wanted to hear more from her.

For those of you who have never been to an experimental opera and don’t have any experience with this sort of music, let me tell you what to expect: screaming.  Lots of it.  At the end everyone on stage (even the conductor and the instrumentalists) were screaming at the top of their lungs.  Before that we had the men and women of the chorus doing contrasting screaming styles (which was actually very interesting to listen to) and then the odd scream here and there just to make sure you’re still awake (a very real danger when you’re a sleep deprived single mom—if you aren’t engaging I *will* fall asleep).  There was also the obligatory breaking of the 4^th wall with an aggressive approach to the audience.  Unfortunately, either the chorus was too timid or too polite to be fully committed to this aggression.  I was in the middle of the first row of audience members and nobody made eye contact with me.  They were all looking just past my head.  They may have been making eye contact with people a row or two back but how safe is that?  Both parties have a nice barrier of people in between them.  There’s very little chance that the actors were going to crawl over me to get at the people in the third row so I highly doubt the audience members were that intimidated.  I, however, had a fighting chance of being intimidated and they blew it.  I have to admit that I had a split second desire to suddenly sit forward in my chair and stick my face right in the way of the actor who was so carefully avoiding my gaze.  In the end, I was too polite as well.  I should have done it, though.  It would have been interesting to see his reaction.  There was also a section where the actors/singers and instrumentalists grow bored of listening to a character and break character to do things like stretch and play card games but even that was done very politely and in hushed voices so as to not cover up the monologue.  I wanted them to speak in normal voices and really be uninterested in her speech.  Believe me, this actress (the aforementioned Michelle Alexander) had the pipes to be heard over the crowd.

The other thing you’re going to hear a lot of in experimental opera is atonal music.  I may be using that term improperly so let me tell you what it means to me: note combinations that make you wince a little bit.  This may be a happy wince.  There were some happy winces with the violin solo, for instance.  And then there was the character who was, literally, Johnny One Note.  The poor actress had to sing all of her lines on one note.  And the poor audience had to listen.  It was in line with the character (the heartless automaton who valued facts over emotion and wore mostly black) but it got tiresome very quickly.  The whole character was tiresome, actually, because it seemed like such an easy, clichéd character.  The actress/singer also had a lovely voice, but didn’t really get to show it off.  Now, I know that characters in opera aren’t terribly nuanced—it’s all about the music.  Perhaps that’s why this character’s lack of dimension bothered me when it didn’t bother me with other characters.

One last thing: I think the stage was set up very effectively.  I loved the use of paper plates and Styrofoam cups as a backdrop and the stage pictures they created were interesting to look at.  I also really loved having the instrumentalists right in front of us (especially the percussionists with all of their atypical noise sources).  There was a wonderful spirit of whimsy throughout the entire production--from some of the visual choices to characters like the Old "Wise" Tree and musical interjections like the Coca-Cola Jingle.

Overall, I would say that this was a successful evening, even though it was different from the sort of production I generally attend.  Definitely fed my start tonight!