Opera Chic

Nekrošius’ Mutinous Faust La Prima: La Scala Makes For a Wild Ride to Hell

 

La Scala's new Eimuntas Nekrošius production of Gounod's Faust should have been one of the slightly cooler beacons in a depressing season packed with banal duds and tarnished stars. Lithuanian director Nekrošius, a master of modern stage direction, is celebrated in Europe for good reason as a progressive, imaginative, intelligent artist who brings peculiar and unique symbolism to theater and opera repertory. But La Scala, brimming with political nonsense and selfishness, blew up the new production quicker than the Hindenburg (too soon??!).

Cranky loggione (and frankly, all rightful ticketholders of Scala's bloated prices and hefty, non-refundable processing fees) decided from the punctual, 8pm separation of the magenta curtains that the show would not triumph. Not that there was much to be celebratory for: the week leading to opening night carried ripe rumors of a strike-keen staff. And when the curtain finally raised last night, there was a inconvenient stipulation: the chorus -- an unmatched mass in plain clothes and yellow ribbons pinned to their chests -- came out on stage before Stéphane Denève took to the podium and read their union's statement (bafflingly, in Italian only) explaining to the audience that they'd be un-costumed and unwilling to follow Nekrošius' direction in protest of government budget cuts. WTF? The loggione rioted with shouts of "Vergogna" and "These people have no respect -- we've paid for our tickets", booooo, hiss, rinse, repeat -- just another night at La Scala where opera is a contact sport and drama is a way of your life, right?

Then there was the orchestra, in mismatched jeans and t-shirts, who passive-aggressively delayed the curtain opening at the end of each pause, culminating in an opera that lasted 4.5 hours (the website estimated the show would only last 3.5 hours) and a booo-soaked curtain call that jeered the entire cast (including the supers!) -- although Irina Lungu’s Marguerite was spared consternation for her excellent interpretation. Booing which was not completely deserved by a decent (‘tho at times mediocre) cast and an adept conductor. But Nekrošius was robbed of his vision by the childish tactics of a chaotic, disorganized opera house that just can't seem to sort it out. If you destroy it, they won't come.

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I'm Pretty Sure I 4ever h8 Poetic Theater: Thanks Nekrošius!!

Opera Chic keeps an open mind and will likely try anything once (except those adidas kangaroo kicks…that’s just gross), relying on her inextinguishable craving for adventure and innate curiosity. Which is why I accepted a ticket to the untouchable Lithuanian Director Eimuntas Nekrošius's staging of Goethe’s Faust. Put on by the Meno Fortas actors (a theater organization founded by the genius himself in 1998 that travels the world unveiling his productions), and performed in Milan's Piccolo Teatro di Milan over the past week for art students and assorted hipsters, this exhaustive, minimalist reading of the German work is a far cry from anything in the sane world.

Nekrošius isn't a stranger to opera direction, and has lent his vision a few years ago to the opera stage for Verdi's Macbeth in Italy and Moscow, and directed a 2005 Boris Godunov with the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (and with our favorite Ferruccio “I Got Teh Powah” Furlanetto), but next time I'd rather seek-out a bit of Verdi or Mussorgsky accompaniment to make his direction a bit more palatable and digestible.

(The theater Piccolo Teatro Strehler in Largo Greppi)

Let's just put it out there right away: OC left after the first intermission, a mere 45-minutes into the 4 hour adventure. In Latvian with Italian titles whizzing by above the stage, my patience just couldn't remain intact. Yeah, that. And then there was the shaded light bulb strung over the stage, vigorously pulled like a puppet from the four corners for about twenty minutes, while flashing the audience (and right into my eyes) as a seizure-inducing, spastic strobe light.

What I witnessed in the first 45-minutes of this direction of Goethe‘s Faustian legend was a dark, oppressive, confusing world filled with wild gesture, bizarre (but understandable) symbolism, and other assorted weird things. I "get" Nekrošius's theatrical language, but I just don't care for it -- it's too obscure for the sake of being existential.

Thank gawd I missed this, or my eyes would have been rolling so hard, they would have scraped-off my Dior eyeliner: "In the final scene, all the characters ramble in the darkness of obscurity, with stretched out hands, helpless and blind." omg man is all alone in this huge dark abyss of humanity. omg halp halp omg. Faust, the perpetual loner, wandering in solitude to soothe his cleaved soul. Moar black turtlenecks + clove cigarettes + hijacked copies of  Dante's Inferno. get out get out NOW the LAMENESS is calling from *inside* the house!

A few impressions before I cut out?: The scenery included a bathtub wrapped in gold hanging upside-down from the stage; a black Ringu well where the townspeople came out of; a little monkey guy running around the stage clapping cymbals and catching skeet targets between them; a bicyclist with a pillow on his handlebars that would ride around the stage with his head resting on said paellow.

Nekrošius apparently has a cult following here in Italy, and is regarded as a master of modern stage directing, untouchable by the lauding critics, likes to kiss babies, helps old ladies cross the street, and saves kittens from burning buildings. Obviously, my ingrained American predispositions are still battling my impending European assimilation. In any event, when I got back to villa OC, I cracked the Domingo, Freni, Prêtre Paris Faust to wipe clean the slate of that oppressive doomsday acid trip that had been fausted upon me.

//heh. did you see what I did there?