Castrati -- It Ain't Just a Drama, Mami (& NY Times Review)

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/22/07 at 4:52pm

Mexico's Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes is putting on a great show in the Lincoln Center Fest. De Monstruos y Prodigios: La Historia de los Castrati (Monsters and Prodigies: The History of the Castrati) presents the history of the Italian phenomenon of castrated boy singers known as Castrati with great flair.

The Castrati still existed into the beginning of the 20th century, living on after the barbaric experiment was outlawed in the end of the 19th century. At the very end of the performance is a recording from like 1913 of exquisite soprano singing of the Ave Maria by one of the few remaining Castrati in the presence of the Pope. And throughout the play bits of history surrounding the events and lives of various of the Castrati interweave with an ancient harpsichord in accompaniment.

[SPOILERS]

This is not, however, your typical historical drama, though it has its slice of misery and mourning given the topic. The fourth wall and any pompousity are quickly pierced with surreal entrances of a two-headed siamese twin barber surgeon, a native Meso-American as a slave, a centaur, Napoleon Bonaparte, and a very real scene-stealing white stallion (Mexerico) with the fancy criss-cross hoofwork, dressage and bows of a famed white Lipizzaner Austrian showhorse. Just when you think you have gotten used to the English subtitles for the Spanish--the cast breaks into fluent French, leading to a major food fight with the audience. And you find yourself sitting in a comedy!

This troupe is a triumph of fun, refusing to let the subject matter go morbid, or if you will, reveling in its morbidity, balancing with a golden thread the cost of sacrifice in creation against the effect of the occaisionally sublime in art. And ending with the sopranist/castratio Il Virtuoso (Javier Medina) in the lonesome clown poses of Pagliaccio-like sadness as he listens to the recorded aria that has survived.

Lincoln Center, you are amazing to find this masterpiece and bring it to NYC.

Bravo!



© 2007 nomdeplume by pseudonym All rights reserved.


World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions Updated On: 7/23/07 at 04:52 PM

[whatever2]

Posted: 7/22/07 at 10:37pm

just saw this. also thought it was extraordinarily well-done ... unique ... well worth seeing. and i would completely second the kudos to LCF for bringing this to new york.

BUT

there were a great many scenes in this performance i just couldn't put together. too much i didnt understand -- and my spanish is fluent, my french passable.

the first half was flawless. but then it dissembled.

there were moments where i felt like i was watching a cheesy latin american variety show on univision -- which would have made sense if the plot had flowed into or out of the schmaltz. at first, i thought this was meant to give us a sense of what it was like to be in the audience during an italian opera of the period (where rich people decorated their boxes, went on social calls to other boxes, and had spitting contests on the orchestra stalls), but the nonsense went on too long and attempted to span too much history for that to be an accurate read.

and the food fight, while hysterical, baffled me -- to borrow a phrase from the porn industry: was it organic to the plot?

again, the performers were extraordinary (i LOVED the centaur), the story compelling, and the counter-tenor who played the castrato was a knock-out ... but the plot line meandered in so many places i just couldn't put it all together.

i would recommend this to anyone, but to the director's i'd say: tighten this puppy up -- a lot.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:14am

whatever2,

I took the deconstruction into the food fight as a cross between a Brechtian distanciation technique and looping into the Spanish/Mexican surrealism where reality dissolves as in Like Water for Chocolate (Mexico) or Pan's Labyrinth (Spain).

For me it worked brilliantly because what it said to me was don't get all hung up on the idea of castration, or the rightness or wrongness of it. It made me remember how many books claim that there weren't really any Castrati, that that was just a myth, as did the inclusion of the mythical Centaur and the ideas of freaks, such as the two-headed Siamese twin, paralleling the concept of castrato as freak.

The play debunks the mythical centaur itself by description from ancient heroic texts of the recordation of freak births of horses with human heads which the play was explaining as more likely being the hybrid offspring of bestiality.

The native American slave's revolt was a setup for the Napoleonic cries for "Liberte Egalite Fraternite" yet Napoleon drove up huge carnage of lives lost in war following the French Revolution as he changed the concept of individual freedom into his brutal narcissistic accumulation of Empire.

In seeing the actors all cut loose and then involve the audience (you can bet that was a setup when the guys started screaming that they paid money and there were no subtitles and they couldn't understand French) it can't help but raise the question of what is art and what purpose does it serve.

Which draws us back to how people could castrate children, first off taking the initial morbidity rate from the barbaric castration which they said ranged from 10 to 70% depending on the surgeon, then taking into consideration the void of normalcy and marriage and family that it took from their lives to create some singing phenomenons.

I did find it hilarious that they recreated the Italian opera scene in which only the most important arias were paid attention to and the rest was a chance to greet and chat with friends--and then how serious he got about the music when the castrato began to sing, hushing the crowd instead. Makes me think of the drive-in movies atmosphere, which somehow jumps into the most expensive and serious of plays and operas when cell phones go off mid-performance and people act like they are at a pool party.

So I don't think it needs directorial tightening. Life is messy and weird and ridiculous, and for me the play celebrated that.

And by the way, a sesame seed-topped dinner roll made it up to me in the mezz and I shared it with my seatmates. It was fresh.


© 2007 nomdeplume by pseudonym All rights reserved. Updated On: 7/23/07 at 12:14 AM

[whatever2]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 10:05am

helpful insights -- thanks.

i do still think the mayhem went on too long for the play's own good, but i agree completely with all the positive elements you mention.

again, it was well worth seeing.

p.s. i was right behind the guy in the audience who started screaming -- it took those of us around him a minute to realize he was part of the spectacle!

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:58pm

Ha ha!

As I suspected. I was doing audience participation from the rafters. I noticed a bunch of you down there joined in with the plant and began to call out, too, just for fun. I suppose I have a longer attention span for mayhem as most of the usual season shows I see at Lincoln Center and many dramas do not have any and are quite serious about themselves, so it was refreshing.

The guy imitating an Italian at the opera was dead on hilarious, but when he switched to French his French was terrific!

They were quite acrobatic showmen--and even horsemen with the fancy dressage.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 5:22pm

From the program, Mexerico is a 14 year old Lusitano horse from Portugal who spent the first half of his life training for the bull ring. He did not respond to charging bulls, however, so a change in career path to acting was decided. Though Mexerico is referred to as a "he" in the program, his status as a "stallion" is left oblique, leaving one to ponder his relationship to the subject matter of the play. I did not have my opera glasses with me to take that close a look at his attributes. He had one of the most beautiful braided, swept to one side manes I have ever seen on a horse. The audience wanted to hug him when he and Il Virtuoso bowed to each other.

Wilborn Hampton reviews the show for the NY Times:
Castrati Got the Money and the Girls Updated On: 7/23/07 at 05:22 PM