Wednesday 13 August 2014

Michael Nyman's Facing Goya: Science Lesson at Singapore International Festival of Arts


A modern opera as the opening performance for the reboot of Singapore International Festival of Arts, formerly known as the Singapore Arts Festival.

The topic of neuroscience and cloning may be interesting in the year 2000, where Dolly the cloned sheep took the world by storm.  But the ethics of cloning is not new to us - there were sci-fi movies galore telling us the pitfalls of human cloning.  At slightly over 2 hours with an intermission, the opera still seemed long to me.  This was partly due to the plot not moving forward much, and I just did not appreciate the libretto by Victoria Hardie.

On the plus side, the score by Michael Nyman was generally enjoyable for a contemporary opera, with beautiful moments at the end of first half.  Director Ong Keng Sen was able to keep the pace going, utilising the actors well and incorporating the appropriate multimedia imagery.  In addition to being good singers, the cast of 5 were able to portray the right emotions for the various roles they took on.

While I did not get excited about this production, I still enjoyed certain moments of it.

This was also my first time at the refurbished Victoria Theatre.  The seating capacity had been reduced greatly and the stage had become smaller.  I still missed the old Victoria Theatre.  While it may be lacking in modern staging facilities, it would still be an ideal venue for mid-sized performances.  I doubt the new Victoria Theatre could stage any decent dance performances.

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