A House of Many Chambers

Jason, I agree with you .. the staging and sound design were not on a par with the music.
Evan's score, both for the traditional (new music) ensemble, and the original and transcribed music he wrote for Gamelan Salukat were delicious.

The video was unnecessary and confusing, and was not helpful to understanding the story.

The libretto too was not convincing.

Thankfully, tho, the music was exceptional, and it is still ringing in my ears.

I hope that local gamelans find the work and it has an afterlife, but maybe without the video and a bit more inspired direction and staging. I would really love to see it, and hear it, again.

My personal, earnest, blow-by-blow responses to this review appear below in italics, with the full text of the original review interspersed in regular text.

It’s easy to understand why Cal Performances scheduled four preconcert educational events in association with the two-performance U.S. premiere of Evan Ziporyn’s new opera, A House in Bali, at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall. There’s little that’s literal about the work.

Nonsense. The work is staggeringly literal, a blow-by-blow of the experiences of McPhee, as was his book. It's about as literal as a documentary, in fact. Problem is, what is literal about a Bali experience in the 1930s (or even now) may seem abstract and even surreal to most audiences. Yet literal it is, and hie thee hence all who doubt and disbelieve. This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around.

As the intentionally sketchy plot of this oft raucous, two-act musical memoir unfolds, four single and three multipurpose characters weave in, out, and in front of two rooms at the left of the stage and the large space for musicians in the center and right.

Oft-raucous sounds altogether good to me.

At the same time, Balinese dancers gesticulate; “subtitles” of the hard-to-understand English libretto project on a long, narrow screen, awkwardly positioned right below the stage apron, and two videographers weave in and out while projecting images that often include each other on a large screen that dominates upper stage left.

I saw it without any multimedia static at the world pre-premiere in Ubud. I'm beginning to suspect that this opera is perhaps better without the diversion of multimedia sideshows for the attention-span-deficient morons of modern times. But supertitles should certainly be provided. I might also recommend a brief prologue written by, say, a leading Baliologist with a good sense of humour, and read out by a nice baritone in period dress in front of a 1930s radio microphone.

An antiquated TV that could not have existed in the 1930s, when the opera is ostensibly set, projects black and white images in the bedrooms of the house, while six members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, including guest violinist Todd Reynolds, do at least some of what their name implies, and the 18-member, shirtless Gamelan Salukat engages in irresistible percussive cacophony. Sometimes the empty, rumpled, bed is covered by young, bare-to-the-waist Balinese musicians who collapse on it more than once in the course of the opera.

The TV thing I kind of accept, yet at the same time sustain the critic's objections here. I see the old TV in this context being deployed in a metaphoric or symbolic way. It is there to emphasize that these things we see are "mediated" . . . not only by the media of writing, or the press or popular opinion, but also by the strata of time. I don't know how they placed or used the old TVs in the Berkeley staging, but the use of them conceptually agrees in my mind with the process of portraying a story such as Colin McPhee's to a bunch of us 21st centurions sitting around today. It works. It says something about how certain somethings still significant are being said in the opera over the distances of time and across layers of accumulated dilapidation of thought, media interpolation, and attitudes. It's mediated, (on both immediate and meta levels), and it knows this, all the while saying, "Let's be aware and accepting of mediation, and it's interpolation since the 1930s, in all that we perceive of our diverse histories."

In sum, the opera provides a window on the sensual assault of Balinese culture that compelled Canadian composer Colin McPhee (whose 1946 memoir provides the basis for the libretto) to live in Bali and literally fixate on his experience there.

Bravo.

The work makes an impact as much for its intentionally jumbled, all-encompassing gestalt as for its purely musical aspects. There’s so much going on, and so much stream of consciousness dialogue, that only by reading both the synopsis and Ziporyn’s two-and-a-half page program note can you learn that the libretto includes pivotal events that are sometime depicted only by obscure symbolism.

I concur with the above, up to the word "dialogue". Bali is by nature and unapologetically so, a jumbled, all-encompassing gestalt (most certainly from the point of view of San Franciscans entrenched in their own milieu). And in Bali certainly there is "so much going on, and so much stream of consciousness dialogue," always, ever, and everywhere, and that is by no means a bad thing. The critic has missed the point. The character of cataclysm is the whole point. Therefore: Objection Denied. As for "pivotal events . . . depicted only by obscure symbolism," here I also take issue. The pivotal events themselves were obscure by nature, this is Bali after all, and that was the very point. That is the message. Therefore, the opera succeeded in conveying said ambiguity and obscurity to the critic. Ten out of ten. So, say "Bravo!" and stand up, bringing palms together in percussive appreciation (and bewilderment).

Most characters are hardly fleshed out. In particular, Margaret Mead, whose 1942 book, Balinese Character, was another source for the opera, seems almost cartoonish in her detached sociological pronouncements that dominate the Epilogue. She was marvelously sung by the fearless, world-class soprano Anne Harley.

Here I have to agree. Most characters were somewhat under-fleshed (but not entirely anorexic). In the case of Mead, however, I think they've got her perfectly, sprawling on a pin, to quote Eliot (appropriately I think, and not being anachronistic in so doing), she's wriggling on the wall here, as well she should be. She was by most accounts completely cartoonish after all . . . so: Obejction Over-ruled, at least in the case of Ms. Mead.

McPhee himself, sung by the clarion voiced, haute-contre (high) tenor Marc Molomot, emerges as a driven, blank-faced obsessive who has sex with underage Balinese men in the back of his mind. Note that his wife, who accompanied him on his trips, is never mentioned. The actual McPhee, who returned from Bali, divorced his wife, and later roomed with both Bernstein and Britten, died of depression and alcoholism in 1964.

So, what is the objection to McPhee or the opera in the above paragraph? I find no casus belli here whatsoever.

The third Westerner in the opera, painter Walter Spies, who is freely portrayed by the slim, towering tenor Timur.

Bekbosunov, seems as nonplussed as Molomot is gripped. As depicted and hinted at in the opera, the real-life Spies was flitting, flirting, and no doubt screwing away until the Dutch authorities arrested him in an anti-homosexual purge shortly after McPhee left Bali in 1938. (Although Mead helped secure Spies’ release nine months later, he died in 1942 when a Japanese bomb hit the ship that was deporting him and other German nationals from the Dutch East Indies).

Do I detect undertones of free-floating disapproval here? Was Spies a demon? Certainly not. And to insert "screwing away" is here gratuitous and in a sensible world expungeable without a doubt. Do the critic's personal boundary lines of "ok" and "not okay" behaviour have any relevance here? I think not.

The main Balinese character, who does not sing, is Sampih, whom McPhee brings into his house after the young boy saves him from drowning. Untamable at first, he gives hints at the opera’s end of the newly emerging dancing prowess that eventually landed the historical Sampih a lead role in John Coast’s Dancers of Bali. (He was brutally murdered at age 28.) Thirteen-year old Nyoman Triyana Usadhi was marvelous in the role. Equally so were the three Balinese dancers: Usadhi’s father was I Nyoman Catra, a master of traditional Balinese masked dance who specializes in clown roles; riveting dancer/choreographer Kadek Dewi Aryani; and dancer/choreographer Desak Madé Suarti Laksmi.

Well, finally, thank you for recognising some inherent value . . . after all the thrashing.

One problem with comprehension was the sound design. In an opera in which everything, including the impossible-not-to-hear gamelan, was amplified, sound director Andrew Cotton had Molomot’s headset mike turned up higher than everyone else’s. The high tenor’s voice tended to distort in his loudest passages. Throw in two other singers plus all the musicians, and you had sections where the din was painful. Perhaps no one told Cotton that the location of the soundboard, under the mezzanine overhang in Zellerbach’s dry acoustic, greatly skews sonic perspective.

Shame, shame on those involved in this technical imprecision.

A House in Bali is very much a stream of consciousness immersion in the clash and clatter of cross-cultural convergence. Whether you consider it a swim in the dark, or a gripping descent into the deep recesses of the unsettling subconscious, depends in large part on your comfort with the unknown. Personally, I found many of the images and astounding sounds haunting me the morning after the experience. Nothing short of seeing it live or on DVD/Blu-ray can possibly convey its visceral impact and unsettling beauty.

That says it all . . . "a swim in the dark" . . . "a gripping descent in to the deep recesses of the unsettling subconscious" . . . "the unknown" . . . "I found many of the images and the astounding sounds haunting me the morning after" . . . moi aussi . . . "visceral impact and unsettling beauty" . . . ok why did the critic not have the balls to put that all up front?

Reading into it, this is a rave rave rave review, all things said and done and read and interpolated. That is as it should be, but with not enough balsl out up front. The opera is ever so slightly challenging, the subject matter also challenging, but only softly so. The reviewer was evidently personally challenged (albeit in an engaging and entertaining way). That is as it should be. That spells S.U.C.C.E.S.S. methinks.

Bravissimo Evan, Bravissimo Bang on a Can, Bravissomo to all the Balinese participants, Bravissimo to everyone who paved a posied path for this opera to release it's intoxicating fragrance upon unsuspecting opera goers of everywhere.

I found it disconnected and not helpful if you didn't know the story beforehand (which I did). But that's not unusual for most "operas".

Also, I found it odd that, unlike more traditional music-theater pieces, the music ran almost continuously ... there were no sections of pure theater .. and almost all dialog was sung.

Perhaps the theatrical aspect of the work could have been enhanced with better pacing and a better libretto. Not sure, tho.

-----
Richard Friedman
MUSIC FROM OTHER MINDS
KALW 91.7 San Francisco 11pm Fridays
http://otherminds.org/mfom

We fled at the intermission due mainly to the distorted, over-amplified "sound design" as heard in the Mezzanine.

No performance in the native language of the audience should need the distraction of titles in order to be understood: as evidence I offer the second half of Christine Brewer's superb concert on Sunday where the printed text was superfluous. In many operas, the text does not need to be followed in every detail, but if does and cannot be someone has failed.
It could be any combination of the librettist, the composer, the singers (for poor diction) and the sound system which, even when first rate, rarely improves comprehension. Volume is not a substitute for clarity.

Some people in the orchestra observed that the raised platform, which provided the very limited space for the dancers, obstructed the view of the remainder of the stage. The lighting of the platform was also poor: perhaps this was intentional.

Incidentally, attendance at Brewer's recital was almost embarrassing. Those who did not show up should get her CD recorded at the Wigmore Hall concert in 2008 which also contains the Britten cabaret songs and hear what they missed.

Good review, Jason! I actually found the video to be a positive addition, since it clearly showed activities going on inside the house which are otherwise hidden from view: the men spying on bathing women, and McPhee and Spies spying on the bathing men; the construction of the house; gestures and facial expressions of singers and dancers which enhanced the plot; and lots of bedroom action. The video camera focused on the bed stands in, perhaps, for what you describe as the back of Colin McPhee's mind. Having had some recent mixed encounters with music/video pairings, I have lots of admiration for what Evan and his collaborators are doing here. I too had trouble with the squat lowness of the staging, part way descended into the pit. The music and dance and performances overall were brilliant, and the amplification didn't bother me.

To SFCV editors: Your readers seem like such well-educated people. When they write comments, could they make a little more effort to distinguish between "its" (possessive) and it's (short for "it is")? It seems like such a simple little thing.

A remarkable work of art, multilayered mise-en-scene worked beautifully, including use of media (for example, cameras in Act One showed the distortion of the culture in Act Two). Initially, when I read the libretto, I was concerned that it was 'stiff' (difficult to sing), but it was admirably handled by the singers and the composer, who performed a brilliant task in illuminating the two cultures (with Bang on a Can and gamelan), sometimes together, sometimes not, as fit the text. The stagecraft, more like cinema techniques, showed what is possible with creative intelligence. Kudos to all!