Unseal Unseam 2016CalArts Festival Theater
Read more about the opera Unseal Unseam
Unseal / Unseam is an electroacoustic opera, inspired by Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle and Schoenberg's monodrama Erwartung. The initial format actually included a full performance of Erwartung at the end of the show, but various constraints, not least the desired length of a Fringe event, meant that a short extract only was shown as part of the background video.
The opera draws also on dramatic themes from Shakespeare ( the Willow Song from Othello as well as Hamlet) and Kleist's Penthesilea, a drama centred on the Amazon queen from Greek mythology.
We are confronted with Judith (Micaela Tobin), who is trapped within her own psychological purgatory, struggling to escape her physically abusive partner. She confronts her trauma upon a series of abstracted objects, with much clanking of chains. The most surprising element musically, almost incongruous in the context, was the Jacobean melody used for the performance of the Willow Song. The Stage Wife (Sara Sinclair Gomez) looks on, knitting a more flexible, textile web out of her own memories.
The singers acted out the drama against a filmed background with Bluebeard (David Hochwalt) a menacing presence on screen. The gripping performance, a combination of operatic singing and experimental electronic music, required the audience's full attention, as we were drawn in to understand harrowing details behind the cycle of abuse.
Running time 1hr.
£10 (£8)
