Vivaldi & Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater
LoftOpera
The Muse
June 24, 2017
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| A mother emotes over the profoundest loss Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
It was a night unlike any other out at the Muse with LoftOpera. It
was the company’s first excursion into the baroque and for the occasion they
put together a mash up all their own. In a break with the past party vibe one has
come to expect from an evening at LoftOpera, the general tone of the evening
was somber, and rightly so. There was a seat for everybody and all the seats
were full, which made it feel like a more civil outing than the usual sprint
for a spot and people squeezing in anywhere they can, including on the floor.
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| Husband and wife suffer alone, together Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
The evening we went was well attended but fortunately the venue
wasn’t bursting at the seams. In fact, the vibe was mellower, which perfectly
suited the music. And everybody around us was in rapture with it.
It was plaintive and reflective, beautifully executed by the
orchestra, breathtakingly sung. The whole product was extremely high quality with
what would even seem to be luxury casting. The cast of two singers, soprano Heather Buck and countertenor Randall Scotting, were truly excellent
and the orchestra was as tight as it has ever been at Loft.
At first impact, the production also came across as a rather
elaborate outing for the company. An elevated catwalk crossed the space in a “V”
with stage-like platform along one of the long walls framed by tall scaffolding
and a row of projection screens.
Experiencing this music live in such an intimate and informal
context moved me in ineffable ways. It brought me back to the days of writing
my dissertation when I listened to this plaintive and reflective sub-genre of
baroque music on heavy rotation. My eyes teared up from the first bars with
emotion and the power of recognition.
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| Brian Gilling at the helm of the orchestra Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
When the orchestra eased into the opening piece by Vivaldi (Sonata à 4 al Santo Sepolcro in E flat major)
the projections began to show a series of highly mannerist video recordings of
the male and female leads in close up grieving to extremes and played back in
slow motion. They really helped to set the scene and made it clear that the
evening was really going to be all about tone.
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| Emotionally raw at every turn Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
Director John de los Santos
abstracted out of the story of the death of Jesus on the cross a drama of a
husband and wife suffering from the loss of a child, potentially not necessarily
the Messiah himself, although the text was sung in the original Latin and even
the supertitles remained faithful to what was actually being sung to the
letter, including all its references to mortem
Christi and the Lord and the rest.
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| Slow motion, highly mannerist projections set the tone Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
The concept made me think of Lars Von Trier’s Anti-Christ and the torment that couple inflicts on themselves
and each other in a similar situation. Need I say more?
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| Consolation is never enough Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
They attempt to console one another. They go through the motions
of their daily life together as a couple and, heightened by the extreme beauty
of the music, it is so very poignant. They sit down to dinner, for example at
one point, but they only manage to pour themselves a glass of wine. Thus, they remain lodged in their own personal suffering. When confronted with such
pain, each of us remains an island. The grieving process is seen to be just
that insular. But they take us there, unflinchingly, and don’t let us down, no
matter how hard it is to watch.
In fact, the whole thing climaxes with a moment of in extremis exaltation. After all that
the couple has been through on their own but also together, the mother in one
way or another is able to sublimate her grief and as the orchestra lurches into
the final bars we watch breathlessly as she climbs up onto the scaffolding and
experiences a kind of resurrection or apotheosis, or are we to understand this
as the assumption of Mary in more explicitly theological terms? In any case, it
was unspeakably beautiful. The final image emblazoned in your mind is that of
the mother of Christ crucified in her own right, with her arms outspread and
her head hung low from exhaustion in her grief.
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| The auteur vision played the music and text straight (thank goodness!) Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
It is yet another sign that the hipster scene in the city has
grown up. I can’t help but think that this was truly an adult night out in the
kind of place that one might have caught a alt-rock band or a DJ night even
just a few years ago. Filling it with a group of young people eager to ponder
the depths of their souls to baroque music makes me so very happy.
– Lui
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| A mother ascends Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
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| An ascension, another crucifixion, an apotheosis Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
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| Another great show from LoftOpera, another angel gets her wings Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco |
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