Welsh National Opera’s latest season, Freedom deals with some hefty subject matter: human rights, liberty, oppression and the like. Fedor Tot looks ahead to this expansive project.
Freedom is an ambitious month of programming, taking in not just opera, but also a series of exhibitions, many of which make full use of the possibilities of Augmented and Virtual Reality storytelling, and a host of debates and talks. Combing through such hefty material is no easy task.
To begin with, the season of operas chosen tends firmly towards the newer side, with only Act II of Beethoven’s Fidelio representing any work from before the 20th century. Of the rest, the oldest work is Brundibár, written in 1938. Written by Jewish Czech composers Hans Krása with a libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, the opera was intended to be performed by children, for children, specifically those at the Jewish orphanage in Prague. Eventually, most of the original performers and staff were sent to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, and eventually murdered during the Holocaust. It has a special connection for the opera’s musical director Tomáš Hanus, whose mother was one of the Theresienstadt performers. Here, opera doubles as a function of remembrance.
As WNO producer Maris Lyons states: “When Hans Krása and Adolf Hoffmeister originally wrote the piece, they did not know at the time they created the opera that it would be staged by Jewish children in a concentration camp. They created a lovely opera for children played by children, but they also aspired to create something that would help the children fight against evil and stimulate solidarity.”
Opera is often seen by its critics as an out-of-touch artform focusing on works that are centuries old and have little relevance to today’s world. Much of Freedom’s programming reads as a riposte to that, looking at ways in which music can reflect and challenge our preconceptions. “Opera is so often associated with historical works, and there is perhaps a misconception that it is something outdated and old fashioned,” says Lyons. “But contemporary opera, particularly newly commissioned works, are enjoying increasing popularity right now, as audiences seek fresh voices to interpret the complexities of our times. A generation of young composers like Jake Heggie [Dead Man Walking] are challenging the traditional boundaries of the art form, creating work that is as viable as it is dramatic, and can readily translate. We felt that with a subject matter as current as Freedom, so focused on real human experiences, we needed to hear from composers with an equivalent relevance and immediacy to their craft.”
Music with a political bent has always been a difficult thing to transmit. We tend to respond to music in a more abstract way than to film and theatre (think of Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA, an anti-war parable that frequently gets mistaken for a piece of flag-waving patriotism). So what challenges in particular did that present for a programme as openly political as Freedom?
“I wonder if it’s because we don’t sing through our days or sing to communicate in our everyday lives, so just the fact that the cast is singing suspends belief for some, and can be a difficult bridge to cross,” Lyons muses. “But then again, the power of music can also help transport the audience to a certain emotion and thought process.
“These are challenges faced by our artform every day – tackling themes of a political bent are no different from tackling other themes. I think the difference with this season is that we are keen to explore the issues and themes in more depth off the stage too. This isn’t because we can’t express all we want to in opera, but because we want to examine the issues in more detail, and provide a platform for further discussion.”
Hence where the talks, debates, and exhibitions come in. Many of the exhibitions are based around AR/VR methods, are in a way an attempt to humanise and bring individual empathy to the mass suffering we’re often told about. Where numbers fail, individual stories can bring a closer touch. “That is the beauty of the work,” says digital producer David Massey. “We’re looking beyond the broad brushstrokes and statistics we’re fed by the media and stepping into a world where we can walk alongside the vulnerable and dispossessed. We take a moment, an interaction, an experience, and we open it up and invite you to step inside. I hope audiences will come away feeling overwhelmed by what they have experienced.”
Melding the material and the medium was a key factor, avoiding any gimmicky aspects. “I was really conscious that the technology should lend itself well to the stories we are telling on stage,” Masseys says. “I don’t think any of the digital experiences that we are exhibiting were created with the intention of being novel. There is an element of theatre when putting on a AR/VR headset, yet it’s also a very intimate, private experience and each participant will react differently to each piece of content we’ve chosen to exhibit.
“The interesting thing about stories explored in VR and AR is that it can transport you to another time and place, allowing you to experience history in a way that surpasses the confines of other more traditional art forms and mediums. Gabo Arora’s The Last Goodbye takes us into a photogrammetric scan of a concentration camp where we walk side by side with a Holocaust survivor. As an audience member you’re taken to an alternate reality, one that you wouldn’t experience in real life. The immediacy of the experience is all encompassing as the barriers between the artwork and us are broken down.”
That ability to break down barriers is crucial to the thinking behind Future Aleppo, created by Mohammed Kteish, Alex Pearson and Andy Overton, whereby we visit a paper recreation of a pre-war Aleppo. Initially, for Pearson, “VR was the one platform I didn’t want to use. I wanted something accessible and affordable that would enhance the lives for whom Future Aleppo was intended – the children surviving the conflict and at the time VR was the very opposite of those prerequisites. The mood change came when Mohammed’s sister Limar insisted on trying the headset I had taken with me, and in an instant was completely liberated from her own reality into something completely different. It was evident that VR could offer a brief respite to children from the horrors they had witnessed firsthand and, furthermore, could empower them if those worlds they escaped into had been created by them.”
One of the highlights of the programme here, in terms of breaking down those barriers between audience and art, is Asad J. Malik’s Terminal 3. It explores the realities of being a Muslim crossing the US border, where you directly interrogate a hologram passenger to determine whether they’re to be let into the country or not. The aim, according to Malik, is to “create a surreal power dynamic where the viewer is not only in control of the hologram’s faith but is also the only ‘real’ person in the room. The project juxtaposes almost poetic real-life stories of Muslim passengers with the coldness of the interrogation room. I hope that viewers have a harder time than ever before when they try to pin down the characteristics of what it means to be Muslim in today’s world.”
Ironically, Malik himself won’t be able to visit his creation in the flesh due in part to ‘visa-related complications’. “Maybe next year I’ll come as a hologram?” he suggests.
Freedom, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay and various other venues, Fri 7-Sat 30 June. Tickets: prices vary, some events free. Info: www.wno.org.uk/freedom