GRENDEL--the MUST SEE show of the season

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 11:08am

This will be a little piecemeal, just in chunks, as I'm still processing the new Grendel opera I saw last night which Julie Taymor directs for Lincoln Center Festival in the State Theater at Lincoln Center...

When I arrived at the Lincoln Center, a swing dance lesson for Midsummer Night Swing was happening out in the plaza, which reminded me of watching my parents jitterbug, there was a nice range of ages. Very fun. There is also a massive, colorful sculpture of real kayaks, rowboats and canoes at the Plaza that is fantastic and made this canoer want to grab them all and pull them to the lake in Central Park for a ride.

I had a front Row A seat for Grendel and was really glad I did as I got to see the dancing and costumes up very close. Before the show I peered mightily into the orchestra pit.

wickedrentq woulda died and been in heaven to see that orchestra--I mean they even had like four bassoons (the program lists two bassoon and two contrabassoon players) for Heaven's sake, at least I think those weird long kinda fat pipe things are bassoons, I don't know what else they'd be. I couldn't count all the violins, violas and strings (the program lists twenty first and second violinists, fifteen on viola and cello). Per usual, and like any time I have peered into the Met's opera pit, the oboeist was fussing with his reed, tricky things, reeds. There was a harp and so many instruments and such a professional, well-dressed gang in the pit that I advise it's worth a good stare. A few latecomers scraggled in to the pit in contrast to the dedicated bunch around them.

As for Grendel, well I think the Lincoln Center Festival is giving the Metropolitan Opera a run for its money with this one. And I saw Sweeney Todd with Elaine Paige and Porgy and Bess at the State Theater there in recent years and never thought the Met was in any danger, but with this wild piece the Met had better get its new Guettel and other commissioned works going in a hurry or someone else may run off with the audience...

to be cont.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 7/16/06 at 11:08 AM

[Barihunk]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 11:37am

Nomdeplume...

Grendel is actually being produced by the Lincoln Center Festival. While it is being performed at the State Theatre, the home of NYCO, it is not their production. The NYCO season starts on Septemeber 13th.

Grendel was a co-commission between Lincoln Center and LA Opera where it had its debut this past May/June. Don't expect to see it around in NYC again soon past its last performance on the 16th. The MET's audience base should be safe and sound...

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 11:38am

I may be "behind the times" with this, but wasn't that the purpose of the New York City Opera? That's why they were formed to begin with.

Their goal was to encourage and celebrate new and modern operatic works... while the Met was always about tradition of the art form and preservation of the classics. With a very "musically conservative" fan base.

Isn't that still true?

(EDIT: Okay, even if Grendel isn't an NYCO production, they're not doing the same sort of projects as the Met, or at least they didn't used to be. It was "old school" and "new school" opera.)

Updated On: 7/12/06 at 11:38 AM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 11:43am

Grendel's got visuals.

If every picture is worth two thousand words, you can see why this account of the production is only offered as thoughts and does not presume to be a review. I am also looking forward to seeing Benjamin Bagby's retelling of the old English legend of the hero Beowulf in song later this month as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. The same Beowulf that enters as conquering hero at the end of Grendel.

Grendel has a major rotating set piece, something between a cave, fortress and ice sculpture, with a great big square "door" in its middle that can fold open, and rise up and down when open. The set piece goes along with the "bigness" or overscale mythic proportion of the sense of the production. It does get moved offstage for some scenes, including a wild scene of battle where men are tossed flying on ropes that Tarzan could have only dreamed to have. And a funny love in a boat scene...

to be cont.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 7/14/06 at 11:43 AM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 11:44am

Geez, Barihunk, you got to it before I could correct it.

This is still in draft.

Yes, it's part of Lincoln Center Festival.

[Barihunk]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 11:49am

You're absolutely correct Best12... NYCO was for the longest time the only place in NYC to hear new works. Ward's "The Crucible", Schoenberg's "Moses und Aaron", Moore's "Ballad of Baby Doe", Floyd's "Susannah", and more recently Adamo's "Little Women" all had their first NYC productions at NYCO and are all part of the frequently performed operatic repertoire. While the MET has had a few premieres here and there it wasn't until "Ghosts of Versailles in 1992 that the MET actively started pursuing new commissions.

This season, the MET will present the premiere of Tan Dun's "The First Emperor" - NYCO has no new compositions on its schedule.

[apdarcey]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 11:51am

(it's bari's job to be smart on these topics and not just sit there and look pretty)

[EugLoven]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 11:56am

My thoughts on Grendel?
I have none.

Because while almost all the events during the Lincoln Center Festival feature day-of $20 student tickets, Julie Taymor's newest creation is nixed from that privilege. I was very excited to nab me some seats until (after waiting in the Box Office line for 20mins) I learned that unfortunate fact.
Updated On: 7/12/06 at 11:56 AM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 12:42pm

Grendel's visuals extend to the costumes, as well. Fantasy mixed with classics, and all of them sensational. Color and style. And TONS of costumes for a gigantic cast. Really not to be missed by anyone with an interest in costume design.

I don't think I can do justice to the costumes here. So much thought, design and effort in their creation. It must have taken a great deal of time, planning and money to create them. From water nymphs in little slips of revealing slinky blue to the fabulous gold armour of the final arrival of Beowulf and his men, this production just endlessly dazzles. I am talking quality costumes here, amazing stuff. And the Dragon! Well the Dragon will get a section of its own later on...

Grendel is a blue-skinned monster with a hoary coat, and is the main character portrayed by the magnificent bass singer Eric Owens, a man of robust chest who fills the role with uncanny grandeur. Grendel is also at times portrayed to show "actual" size by a large puppet manipulated by poles, which is quite enchanting. Grendel has three shadow Grendels who look like him and come and hang out when he needs a chat or whatever. One of them is a marvelous tenor who sings the later duet in the mini-Viking boat with the "Queen" before they have a falling out, and I believe this tenor is David Gagnon. ("Excuse me, which Shadow Grendel with the twigs sticking up out of your head were you?")

Now Grendel has a little collection of Mama and other beastie pals that would put David Hockney and Maurice Sendak (think Wild Thing) to the test for creating misshapen post-traumatic wildies. Julie Taymor has retained an attachment to her Titus Andronicus film foray in the ghastly fate of Lavinia, who had various travesties upon her person. The particular travesty that seems to have stuck with Taymor is Lavinia's hands having been replaced with twigs. For out of various places in the bodies of Grendel's assorted like-beasties come twigs instead of limbs from the misshapen, and sometimes limb-missing forms of the similar basic light ghastly blue hue as Grendel.

As Grendel (Eric Owens) does his best along his journey in this piece to debunk the myth of the hero, there is something innately strangely political about a black actor in blue face debunking a myth of Western Civilization. And black actors and dancers are featured prominantly throughout this work. It adds a visual dimension of interpretation to the piece that is intellectually brilliant, manifested through visual metaphor.

to be cont.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 7/14/06 at 12:42 PM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 1:26pm

The Dragon.

Can you say "diva"?

Well, you haven't lived 'til you have heard and seen this dragon. Is this going to be filmed to be televised to a national audience? It should be!

Yup, this one takes the cake for dragons. On a dragon scale of one to ten, this one's about a 37. And hey, I've seen dragon boats, dragon kites and some cool active dragons hoisted by a dozen or two martial artists for Chinese New Year.

Starting at the tip of its gigantic onstage moving tail, there are three stingers up in the tail, all of them female with coneheads for stingers. Playfully listed as "Dragonettes" Hannan Alatar, Maureen Francis and Jessica Swink in the program. They look terrific, and I confess, I was never much into coneheads before. They're snazzy as hell and sing beautifully.

And now for our Diva Dragon. As I mentioned, I got carried away before the show with things like trying to count violins and bassoons in the pit and eyeballing the horns and so on and didn't bother to read my program (okay, I still haven't read the synopis, so shoot me).

And on comes this magnificent dragon with a captital P presence and struts and sings a bit and I am looking at this face that seems somewhat maybe dark and Asian with the makeup and a torso that's a bit androgynous and thinking is this some Filipino male with one of those sensational three plus octave voices and a great falsetto? And then Diva Dragon hits some high notes and it's quite clear that this is a soprano before me with knock 'em dead acting talent and lo and behold it's DENYCE GRAVES! No resemblance whatsoever to the woman who sang the Lord's Prayer at the National Cathedral after 9-11. (I confess I haven't seen her Carmen or Delilah as I've seen those operas a number of times and prefer to catch ones I haven't seen, but I doubt that would have made me recognize her in this character that she has come to own.)

So that is not all. Diva Dragon has this INCROYABLE red ruffly dragon jazzy getup that's at least a Cathedral length train, maybe 25 feet or more long that lets her move around and still stay attached to her fire-smoking dragon body. (And a shorter version of the red ruffles that she appears in for curtain--what diva could resist this role?) She has a pile of golden dragon loot near her about which she is quite possessive. Grendel visits her for some advice and she gives him some shall we say counter-culture dragon advice to expand his point of view, which he draws on now and then in the piece.

In fact, there is a lot of heavy duty intellectual stuff tossed offhandedly and casually to you by the Dragon and Grendel that makes you want to see the piece again, but not too soon, as your blown mind needs a little time to absorb and try to contemplate it all after the experience before you dare to try to go back and figure out what all the rest of it was about. I mean like time is not a linear concept and all that kind of thing, but it's the context from which it is tossed to you that has put my brain in a sling for a while.

to be cont.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 7/14/06 at 01:26 PM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 2:23pm

The Dancers

I don't have to look at profiles on these dancers (I don't see profiles for them in the program anyway other than the principal) to know that they are some of the tops of the country. And how they dance and what choreography by Angelin Preljocaj. The technique and artistry of the dancers is of a par. If you only went to see the dancing the show would be worth it, and the audience whooped it up for them at curtain.

You are talking ABT quality for every one of them, add Alvin Ailey to boot. And those are just two of the principal dancer's credits, the presence named Desmond Richardson (Tony nommed for Fosse, singer on Broadway in The Look of Love, played Tony in Movin' Out), who shows up at the show's end in a tour de force performance of vigor and precision as the fulfillment of the mythic Beowulf, slayer of Grendel the giant. For all the attempt by Grendel to deconstruct the myth of the hero in his treatment of the wouldbe warrior Unferth (a wonderfully sung committed performance by Jay Hunter Morris), Grendel and all the audience must fall to the myth, to Beowulf, eventually.

Not since the old films of Bruce Lee have I seen a male form that conveys such speed, precision and strength, such intense focus and concentration as our Beowulf brings in dance and mime to the stage. He sheds his armour to reveal full body tattoos and fight mano-a-mano (in a speedo yet) with Grendel, and we are all for it! He got a warm reception from the crowd, lemme tell ya.

The female dancers I can only describe as exquisite. The men seemed more rugged than the usual ballet dancer, more soldier-like, and were very gifted. The choreography cannot be pinned down to a particular style, and though at one point early on there was some very Martha Grahamesque movement on the part of the women with skirt and leg swirls, it was not repeated.

The choreographer is in no rush and takes time, with focused dancers to enter and exit the stage. There is a tremendous amount of work that has been done in the creation and excellence of the choreographed movement of this piece, similar to the background and behind the scenes effort that has gone into the costuming. Any dancer should RUSH to see this show as they will be very moved and appreciative of what they will see.

to be cont.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 7/14/06 at 02:23 PM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 3:23pm

Time and pacing and...

Die Olde English Subtitle Font!

First of all, I'd like to give Julie Taymor credit in that I don't feel an egotistic stamp all over the piece from her directing as I have felt, and which chafed from the director Robert Wilson in say, the opera Lohengrin at the Met. I do not find her work to be a self-conscious statement of herself that gets in the way. I think she serves the play, and did so in Lion King. Like Wilson she has used the spectacle inherent in Asian theatre to effect the piece with the use of great-sized visuals. Both have played with the concept of time as experienced by and conveyed to an audience during the performance. This technique is also copied from Asian theatre as in ancient Noh theatre and the more modern evolution of Japanese Butoh dance and it is a concept that director Anne Bogart also employs to great effect and is one of the reasons why I run to see her shows when I can.

The first half of Grendel is very slow paced. Eric Owens maintains extraordianary focus throughout, which helps keep you hooked, but I nearly dozed off a couple times. It was not Julie Taymor's directing so much as the pace inherent in the opera music itself, composed by Julie's significan other, Elliot Goldenthal. It's wonderful music, the whole thing reminded me of Wagner. I do wish here and there there were some more varied and quicker pacings, particulary there seem to be a lot of slow songs sung by Grendel. I don't tend to fall asleep at the theatre, but people were nodding off a bit around me as well during the first half. The show demands a very high attention span on the part of its audience, I think especially so having to look up and down for the subtitles in the very front.

So my advice, be prepared for the slow pace. Buzz up on caffeine aforehand. One coffee was not enough. Some of the dance procession is quite slow as well. Which is beautiful, and takes great skill on the part of the dancers, but this is not zippity do-dah Broadway fare for the kids. This is NOT The Lion King. I liked the Lion King, I saw it once in previews and that was enough. Grendel I would like to see again as it's much deeper.

The thing I would change about the piece if I could is the location and one of the fonts of the subtitles. I wish they ran them to the sides of the production outside the stage rather than up above as it crooks and fatigues your neck to try to look up and down from the front row, up for the subtitles above the stage and back down to the stage. If they moved the show to the Met Opera house where the titles are all on the seats in front of you that would solve the problem of their location.

Most important--jeez, get rid of that Old English style font that half the subtitles are it--it's a bitch to try to read and drives you blind. Just use the plain Times New Roman style font so you don't torture your poor audience.

I could understand about 80 percent of what was sung without the subtitles, probably more than your average sitter there, but the subtitles are useful and necessary, especially when a group is singing something, so the subtitles need to stay.

And one further note. As part of the "deconstructionism" present in the piece, Grendel occaisionally pipes up with some odd Americanisms and slang which kind of jar the piece in bringing it from mythic times to the present in a stylistic decision similar to Brechtian distanciation (verfremdung). Its effect creates a bit of discomfort in an audience to make them aware they are seeing a theatre piece and to break the verisimilitude, or the getting lost in the dream world created by the piece. I'm not a fan of this aspect of Brechtian theatre, some people love it. I want my verisimilitude dream without the politics jammed down your throat like I get in everyday culture. I don't like politics in church either and get up and walk out if it starts coming from the pulpit.

This intrusion was semi-wrapped up in the plot of the story in terms of the Shaper, the spin doctor of old. I also couldn't help getting an anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war vibe from the piece, whether it is meant to be there or no, which for me interfered with the classic nature of the piece. This conscious political intellectualism for me detracts from the genius the piece would be without it. It's a little different than the genius of Euripedes, who in The Trojan Women commented on politics of the time by recounting a tale of a hundred years prior in allegory. And the audience got it without being beaten over the head with verfremdung. In the end, though, when as foretold by the new seer Shaper, the arresting Beowulf arrives and conquers Grendel (conquering cynicism?), we are left with a hero and the glory of the myth after all. How strange. Almost as if we cannot get away from myth or hero, for myth and hero will out, like truth.

All in all, I find this show to be the MUST SEE of the season.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved


Updated On: 7/12/06 at 03:23 PM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 9:03pm

Postscript

At curtain call the applause was lengthy and thunderous.

And when Eric Owens modestly appeared for his bow, instant standing ovation. Updated On: 7/12/06 at 09:03 PM

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 7/12/06 at 10:26pm

Glad you enjoyed! The more I see pictures of this, the more I want Taymor to return to Broadway, and the more I can't wait to see what Tsypin cooks up for the sets of Little Mermaid. He is definitely one of my top favourite designers, and he has a sensibility in his work that I really connect with.

Akiva

[bluesoprano]

Posted: 7/13/06 at 1:22am

I actually saw Grendel when it was here in Los Angeles and I will say that though it is wonderful visually (great sets and costumes), the music was not praticuarly the best, all I can say about the music is that it was ok. The actual vocals sounded like a recitative that would not end. Although my favorite part in show was the dragon, played beautifully by Denyce Graves.

I would recommend this opera to people just because it is new and has potential to be a great opera. But check it out!

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/13/06 at 10:55am

The NY Times has a fine, fine review by Anthony Tommasini, rich with detail and a good pic of Desmond Richardson as Beowulf. Mr. Tommasini is obviously informed about this opera from outside seeing the opera itself and has studied its progress.

Even though he seems not to have especially liked Grendel as an opera, he provides a wealth of musical background and insight, such as that Denyce Graves was singing in a "chesty, almost baritonal range...before soprano highs" which explains why I initially perceived her as perhaps being male.

His final statement below reveals to me why I was not able to immediately grasp all of the piece and the story, even after seeing it and eventually studying its skimpy playbill synopsis.

"Excuse me for being mundane, but given the intricacies of the story, I wish the creators had been more concerned with clear storytelling. The opera is so loaded down with philosophical mumbo jumbo, extravagant staging effects and needlessly layered music, that it is sometimes hard to know what is happening."

I don't have the same attitude toward Grendel as he does because even though it is an opera, like most of the audience I don't encapsulate my perception of Grendel to the complex arena of opera itself. I think it's a great piece of theatre. The dance component itself is tremendous, and the costumes are some of the finest I've ever seen onstage.

I beg to differ regarding Mr. Richardson's costume, Mr. Isherwood. He sports a speedo, not a loincloth. This isn't Tarzan, ya know.
Monster Inc.: Inside the Sensitive, Suffering Soul of Grendel Updated On: 7/14/06 at 10:55 AM

[jwsel]

Posted: 7/13/06 at 11:17am

bluesoprano,

I had the exact same reaction to Grendel in Los Angeles. Despite the tremendous effort in developing the visuals and the staging -- which really were innovative -- in the end I was left thinking that I had just seen the ultimate exercise in putting lipstick on a pig. It reminded me of a Hollywood action movie, where they spend $100 million on effects and $0 on the story. It would have been nice if all of this effort had been put to use around a better piece of music.

[mejusthavingfun]

Posted: 7/13/06 at 12:25pm

Julie Taymor and Goldenthal will be on WNYC today at 2:00pm for Soundcheck. www.wnyc.org

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/13/06 at 11:47pm

Thanks for that info, mejusthavingfun. I would have liked to have caught the show.

I've thought it over and don't personally agree with jwsel's observation:

"It reminded me of a Hollywood action movie, where they spend $100 million on effects and $0 on the story."


There's plenty of story in Grendel and it's coming at you from all directions, including philosophical, political and in visual metaphor. You are picking some of it up from different senses and sensory impression than other shows, but it is there if you are conscious of the messages on the different layers and levels. It doesn't skimp for story, if anything, it overpowers the aware senses by coming in all directions.

I don't see the visuals created in Grendel as being anything like special effects in a high-budget studio flick. Taymor is much more avant garde than the trendy studios. And she has a deep knowledge of theatre and art to draw on, clearly manifested even in the various forms of puppetry, such as the Bunraku Japanese style puppets in the show that are maybe 40% life size and have individual puppeteers onstage in black letting the person of the puppet come to life.

The costumes were not glitz, they were drawn from many historical and classical styles and yet not beholden to a particular period or style. The final black outfits for the male chorus of the show were well-styled baggy Asian pants and a handsome Asian shirt to go with them, yet I couldn't pin them as Chinese or Japanese of any period. Just studying those costumes alone fascinated me, I was thinking Mongolian, perhaps, reflecting upon all the traditional garb I have seen from different parts of Asia. You don't get that kind of art and detail in a studio flick.

I loved the people flying through the air; it was so well-done and imaginative. In fact, I think the thing I liked best about the production was all the originality, imagination and creativity being celebrated in so many forms. The slow pace to pull you in to the piece's concept of time, to break time as it were, to watch a dancer in slow movement. That's a far cry from a studio blam blam action adventure pace.

Taymor was avant garde before Disney decided to break the mold and draw upon her skills to direct The Lion King. It was a surprise back then that Disney would take what was perceived to be a business risk in placing a non-commercial artist in that choice. A richly rewarded risk, one must acknowledge.

I think she's just pulled out the stops on opera and perhaps has evinced just what the new General Manager Peter Gelb of the Met was thinking of in commissioning some new opera from Guettel and the like to bring some musical theatre excitement to the opera stage. I have found some of the theatricality of the Met performances to have been a bit static, not thrilling or wondrous, and am looking forward to seeing some new overall artistic direction take its course.

© 2006 nomdeplume by pseudonym, all rights reserved Updated On: 7/14/06 at 11:47 PM

[mejusthavingfun]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 10:06am

I saw Taymor's Grendel last night (Thursday). No offense but that last review was a little too long for me to read, so pardon me if I repeat anything that's already been said.

I'm not an opera fan in any way, (they are a real snore for me) and quite possibly 200 years ago maybe I would have felt differently. I've read Beowulf, and Grendel so I'm familiar with the source material. I am however a Taymor fan, and followed her from some of her early work.

The show is beautiful. Julie Taymor needs to KEEP working forever! I don't care if she is putting lip-stick on a pig. Julie Taymor will do it with style. I have never particularly loved any of her work, and this show is quite boring. That said, she will make a masterpiece at some point and I don't want to miss it.

The story is basically translated verbatim from the novel. The novel is cynical look from the monster’s POV, and is really just a narrative. This monster is a loner, and for me something needs to happen in a story. In this story nothing really happens. Just some commentary on the actions of humans. It kind of reminds me hearing Hipster's rant on the L train every morning about the war.

Hopefully this will be on DVD, the visuals are so incredible. The music is a snore. Goldenthal is no Wagner, and I can see why they didn't make this a musical. If they did it would have to be called Shrek.

I hope executives keep throwing money at Taymor. Shame she didn't consult on Tarzan or Lestat.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 2:27pm

So glad you went to see it, mejusthavingfun.

I wish the Met could pick it up for another run in the fall...

[tabbynyc]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 5:58pm

I saw "Grendel" last night & it was amazing!!! The visuals were unbelievable and Julie Taymor is to be complimented for the wonderful work she did on this production. I will agree with ohers, though, that the music was slow and not impressive. Even though it is a narrative, and it was easy to follow, it could have been scored a little more dramatically.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 11:43pm

Sounds like you really enjoyed it, tabbynyc.

Catch it while you can folks--it's a quick run!

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 11:15am

At Lincoln Center this weekend only!

Tonight, Saturday July 15th at 7:30 PM
Tomorrow, Sunday July 16th at 7:30 PM

And then it's gone!

Catch Benjamin Bagby's Beowulf July 18, 19, 20 or 21! I have been waiting years to see this! I even paid full price plus a shipping fee and no real New Yorker pays retail!

Tickets for Grendel and for Beowulf Updated On: 7/15/06 at 11:15 AM

[BumbleWumble]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 1:42pm

Does anyone reading this have extra tickets or know anyone with extra tickets? It seems that the only thing left at this point is $175 for Sunday, and I really don't want to pay that.

If anyone has any leads, I would love to be able to see this production.

Oh, I just need 1!