Robert Lepage makes opera debut

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Spring, 1993 by Karen Bell

The acclaimed director gets his feet wet in the opera world with a double bill of twentieth century works. The COC takes both productions to its debut at New York City's BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music)

In January, the Canadian Opera Company opened an interesting double bill of operas: Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle and Schoenberg's Erwartung (Expectation). This marked the COC debut of acclaimed Canadian director Robert Lepage. In fact it was his first opera oeuvre; although he has been asked to direct operas before, his constantly busy schedule prevented him from accepting. "Opera needs a lot of energy and a lot of time," says Lepage. He is so much in demand that his time is booked until 1996, with plans to direct a film in Quebec next year, design and direct Peter Gabriel's rock tour (an interesting departure from theatre productions), and perform in Needles and Opium in Montreal. Next year he has plans to work in Japan. The COC was lucky to get him; he accepted because the double bill involved |small sized' operas which Lepage felt would be more manageable for his first time than working with a typically large chorus for his opera debut.

Writer/director/actor Lepage has travelled worldwide for theatre productions such as Tectonic Plates. He includes among his impressive credentials: the Dora Award, the Chalmers Award, the TIME OUT Award in London and the Best Production Award at the Avignon Festival. Since 1990 he has been the Artistic Director of the French Theatre Division of the NAC in Ottawa. His own plays have toured Europe, Australia and North America.

The designer who collaborated with Lepage on the COC double bill was Canadian Michael Levine; no stranger to the world of opera, Levine's work has been seen by COC audiences in productions of Wozzeck, Idomeneo and last season's world premiere of Mario and the Magician. Levine has also designed for other opera companies including the San Francisco Opera and the Santa Fe Opera. Now based in London, England, Michael Levine has garnered his own shelf full of awards: an Olivier, a Tony and a Dora.

Of the COC double bill, Robert Lepage said, "It took two months overall and a year of meetings. Michael Levine's been my guide because he has done quite a few operas. We just did A Midsummer Night's Dream together [at the National Theatre in Britain in July]. We were like two Canadian punks lost in this huge British institution."

When asked if working with the fixed score and libretto of an opera felt limiting to a creator of stage plays, Lepage replied that he likes the fact that opera is metaphorical. "You're never stuck with theatrical realism," he said. People are singing and there's lots you can do with the staging." On the contrary he declared, "I feel I have more latitude working this way - with the designers and the musical director." Lepage relied on the COC's musical director Richard Bradshaw, saying, "It's a good collaboration. He's extremely open to my staging ideas. He knows a lot about the musical side - the history and so on, and I need his help with that."

"In fact it is quite interesting to be working on these operas," Lepage continued, "I knew a lot about Bluebeard's Castle and I knew the music quite well. It is a great opportunity to work with only a few performers and get accustomed to the environment. There are no big choruses to work with."

Bluebeard's Castle is Bartok's only opera. Written in 1911, it begins in darkness symbolic of Bluebeard's soul, and progresses through the opening of seven successive doors in the castle by Bluebeard's fourth wife, Judith as she learns more and more of her husband's terrible past. The first is his torture chamber, the second is his armory of blood-stained weapons, the third is the treasure chamber - again bathed in blood, the fourth is a blood-stained garden of flowers, the fifth, a bright expanse of countryside, the sixth a lake of tears and the last reveals his former wives, murdered by him.

A Canadian baritone of international reputation, Victor Braun sang the role of Duke Bluebeard and American mezzo-soprano Jane Gilbert was Judith. The staging by Lepage and Levine was stark, severe and angular, with startling touches of realism like the use of real water on the stage. (The water also ran red with blood.)

Written in just 17 days in 1909 for a single voice and full orchestra, Schoenberg's first opera, Erwartung (Expectations) is a strenuous, thirty-minute tour-de-force for a soprano. American Rebecca Blankenship had her COC debut in the role of The Woman. Director Lepage commented that she is "an extraordinary actress/tragidienne. It's a priviledge to be working with her." Indeed, her voice is perfectly suited for the role which requires incredible sustained volume and strength. In the hands of Lepage and Levine, Erwartung became a psychiatric nightmare complete with white-coated psychiatrist and various illusions and delusions; a very contemporary-looking interpretation of the piece. It seemed at once real and unreal, much like one imagines madness to be.