shanmonster (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shanmonster) wrote2013-05-11 01:52 pm
shanmonster) wrote2013-05-11 01:52 pm
Getting Head: A Review of Salome
If you're not familiar with Oscar Wilde's story of Salome, here's my quick and dirty spoiler:
Spoiled rotten princess becomes infatuated with a Christian prophet who spouts of bunch of yo momma jokes. Prophet spurns her and she has a conniption. Princess's stepfather, a powerful tetrarch, has the hots for the princess, and she takes advantage of this to get the prophet's head served to her on a silver platter. She makes out with the head.
I attended the Canadian Opera Company's performance of Strauss's opera last night. This performance was directed by Atom Egoyan. My opinions are mixed. Parts of the opera are brilliant. Parts of it are so lacking in subtlety that it was like being repetitively hammered with overt symbolism and visual puns. I get that at the climax, Salome gets Joachaan's head. But was it necessarily to neatly bookend the piece with the captain of the guard getting head at the beginning? Really? Especially considering his obsessive infatuation with Salome, why the heck was he having hanky panky with that other woman, anyhow? It just doesn't make any sense at all.
I understand that the director was trying to show the motivations of Salome, why she turned into a bloodthirsty necrophile. But I think that the depictions of her abuse were heavy-handed and out of place with the rest of the story. The dance of the seven veils scene was a weird montage of images of sylph-like innocence and ballerinas in a forest mixed with a nifty, disorienting shadow play of a gang rape. No, I get that the tetrarch wanted to bang Salome. But her consensuality is the major crux of the whole sordid tale. If the tetrarch didn't care about her consent in the first place, the story just wouldn't work. If he didn't require her consent, he'd never have made that deal with her. He just would've raped her whenever he pleased and Joachaan would've continued languishing in the dungeon.
Overall, blocking was solid, but there were a few times when it just didn't work for those of us sitting in the nosebleed section. Screen projections just weren't viewable, and when actors were at the back of the stage, I couldn't see their heads.
Inexplicably, the captain of the guard wore a suit which was way too big for him. I don't know what's up with that.
Other than these things, I think the show was brilliant. The orchestra was magnificent. I loved the simple colour symbolism of the show. White, black, and red clothing and props were used to excellent effect. I don't have the program, so I don't know who played which part, but the stand-out roles were of the Tetrarch (amazing stage presence and a wonderful voice) and Salome herself (some excellent physical theatre, and she can hit high notes and hold them even when she's doubled up or crumpled upon the stage). The climactic scene of Salome with the head of Joachaan was excellently presented, and the blood on the white dress worked well to tie in the problematic earlier scene of the sexual assault.
Spoiled rotten princess becomes infatuated with a Christian prophet who spouts of bunch of yo momma jokes. Prophet spurns her and she has a conniption. Princess's stepfather, a powerful tetrarch, has the hots for the princess, and she takes advantage of this to get the prophet's head served to her on a silver platter. She makes out with the head.
I attended the Canadian Opera Company's performance of Strauss's opera last night. This performance was directed by Atom Egoyan. My opinions are mixed. Parts of the opera are brilliant. Parts of it are so lacking in subtlety that it was like being repetitively hammered with overt symbolism and visual puns. I get that at the climax, Salome gets Joachaan's head. But was it necessarily to neatly bookend the piece with the captain of the guard getting head at the beginning? Really? Especially considering his obsessive infatuation with Salome, why the heck was he having hanky panky with that other woman, anyhow? It just doesn't make any sense at all.
I understand that the director was trying to show the motivations of Salome, why she turned into a bloodthirsty necrophile. But I think that the depictions of her abuse were heavy-handed and out of place with the rest of the story. The dance of the seven veils scene was a weird montage of images of sylph-like innocence and ballerinas in a forest mixed with a nifty, disorienting shadow play of a gang rape. No, I get that the tetrarch wanted to bang Salome. But her consensuality is the major crux of the whole sordid tale. If the tetrarch didn't care about her consent in the first place, the story just wouldn't work. If he didn't require her consent, he'd never have made that deal with her. He just would've raped her whenever he pleased and Joachaan would've continued languishing in the dungeon.
Overall, blocking was solid, but there were a few times when it just didn't work for those of us sitting in the nosebleed section. Screen projections just weren't viewable, and when actors were at the back of the stage, I couldn't see their heads.
Inexplicably, the captain of the guard wore a suit which was way too big for him. I don't know what's up with that.
Other than these things, I think the show was brilliant. The orchestra was magnificent. I loved the simple colour symbolism of the show. White, black, and red clothing and props were used to excellent effect. I don't have the program, so I don't know who played which part, but the stand-out roles were of the Tetrarch (amazing stage presence and a wonderful voice) and Salome herself (some excellent physical theatre, and she can hit high notes and hold them even when she's doubled up or crumpled upon the stage). The climactic scene of Salome with the head of Joachaan was excellently presented, and the blood on the white dress worked well to tie in the problematic earlier scene of the sexual assault.