From the House of the Dead

Wow. I started off my Met opera season with this new production of the grim and bleak story of life in a Siberia prison. Guess I'm feeling the melancholy. After close to a year of looking for a new job, I wasn't feeling either secure in my NYC footings or financially capable of my season tickets, even the cheapo Family Circle, that I opted to just buy single tickets to all the new productions. I missed Tosca, which from what I read was a good thing. Thus I started this Met season with an operatic take on Dostoyevsky's novel about tough times in a Siberian prison. Bleak exponentially.

High up in my B106 Family Circle seat, I knew this production would be cinematic and modern. No red curtain was romantically holding back big sets. And secretly the conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, started right in with the fabulous music. I've never seen a conductor skip the lighted entrance and obligatory pre-curtain applause. But this was one hell of an opera. Leos Janacek's music swung between strong Wagner elements and Philip Glass modernity, which was surprising and shocking to me given it's 1930 original production date. I loved the superb and dramatic use of the orchestra showing all their professional potential to spectacular results.

I've come to expect wonderful results from the orchestra but I was pleasantly surprised at how well choreographed the conductor connected the music with the stage direction, edgily pushed into new places by Patrice Chéreau. Staging was stark against three gray blocks with activity swirling mostly in the center of the stage. The Met has nicely been adding dance and movement to their works. This was best expressed in a theater play piece in the center of this 90 minute tale. The men acted out a play of sexual dalliances and the gestures were overt, which I loved given that prisoners often suffered mentally and physically from such containment so such expression seem apt. At times when the people moved rapidly around the stage, they added unexpected percussion to the piece which I didn't like. I did, however, like when stage characters placed instruments on stage as the libretto and opera called for such expression. I also liked the use of supertitles projected on the stage walls which allowed me to absorb more of the full piece without always referencing my subtitle screen. One must read the libretto translation since there are so many characters talking about their past and how they came to be in prison.

While I liked the direction and loved the music, I was unimpressed by the singers and underwhelmed by the chorus. Perhaps in Act I and II the distraction was the sound of people shuffling around stage. By Act III I could hear Peter Mattei (Shishkov) and Stefan Margita (Flika/Luka) with clarity but everything before then seemed muddled. Even the parts where I expected a pounding or reverberating chorus effect ended flat. But my ear isn't well trained and perhaps the sounds of stage movement carry to the highest levels in Family Circle with more distraction than in other parts of the Met.

Overall, I was impressed. The opera is short and forceful as it deftly it trudges out tough material and segregated story elements with the skill of a tightrope walker. Dramatic and properly contained. A dramatic way to escape for the evening into a world of haunting and unforgettable imagery, movement and sound.

SPOILER ... please don't read if you intend to see the opera!

The most startling and awakening direction, and the highlight of the opera, was the massive drop of what looked to be about a ton of scrap paper onto center stage between Act I and Act II. POW! All this crap, trash, just dumped on this encampment. LOUD and DISTURBING, even causing a cloud of pulp dust to linger like a fog. This is what prison burden must feel like. I never saw this coming and it was very effective. I just sat there wondering, "What the hell was that?" The pause was strong. The whole space was silent. Waiting to see the air to clear, I thought what is going to happen with all that? Act II has the prisoners come out and begin clearing the mess. That's life - dumps on you, someone else can cause this huge mess, even injustice, and you go out there and start picking it up, clearing it away. I was awestruck. While I'd go back, perhaps, just for that one scene, I don't think the moment would have as much impact on me if I knew it was coming. The surprise is what shook me. Sorry if you're reading this and plan to attend as I probably ruined that effect for you.