At the core of the success of the evening was Kiera Duffy in the role of Bess. Breaking the Waves, King's Theatre, run ended, Sydney Mancasola as Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves rehearsals.
Adhering closely to the original, the opera is long, harrowing and unblinking, yet kept buoyant and absorbing by Mazzoli’s fluid score. The initial contrast between Bess’s free-flowing lyricism and the clipped phrases of the church elders is interesting. James Darrah's stage direction, Adam Rigg's set design, and Adam Larsen's projections evoked the barrenness of both the Scottish setting and the stark religion held to be of maximum importance by the villagers. Another standout was Eve Gigliotti as Bess’ sister-in-law, Dodo, the most complex character of the opera besides Bess.
King’s theatre, Edinburgh.
The result was first staged in Philadelphia in 2016 and is now receiving its European premiere at the Edinburgh international festival. Supporting her as dashing husband Jan was John Moore. Musical lines alternating abstract and concrete worked to heighten the narrative. That the performers playing the chorus double as the pious leaders of Bess’s church and Jan’s lusty rig worker colleagues adds to the sense that Bess’s downfall isn’t due to holy intervention, but the result of rank misogyny. The films of Lars von Trier vibrate at a frequency higher than that of real life, their heartache more pointed and all-consuming. Musically, Mazzoli’s style is what could best be described as postmodern minimalism, lots of surface interest and repetitive figures beneath. “Breaking the Waves,” Ms. Mazzoli’s first full-length opera, is a substantial step forward from her turgid 2012 chamber work, “Songs From the Uproar.” Harmonies seethe and drone at the base of the new score, as implacable yet changeable as the omnipresent sea. Mazzoli’s musical language is modern, yet her vocal lines were often lyrical. Wagner is her favorite opera composer. Breaking the Waves, Missy Mazzoli's new opera premiered by Opera Philadelphia, is a work of sheer emotional power that combines strong music, effective staging and, above all, committed performances. “Breaking the Waves” is emotionally and spiritually challenging, hammering at conventional morality with the belief that God not only sees all, but understands a great deal more than we give Him credit for.
At the opera's end there were bells that reminded the audience of Bess's longing for them.
Writing for an orchestra of just 15 players, Ms. Mazzoli confidently creates a range of densities, from symphonic weightiness to agile sparseness. Breaking the Waves. She divided her musical lines between telling the story and allowing the characters to express their feelings about their situations. Moore’s clear diction was exemplary even when he was singing softly on his back as he lay gravely injured. This opera was both powerful and challenging because of its raw sexual content. Breaking the Waves was an unusual tale told with great clarity. She fashioned each of her characters with individual vocal and textural contours so that her singers never seemed to tire.
Steve Osgood led a small orchestra of excellent musicians with his characteristic vigor and precision. Later on, the music achieved a mystical quality that was less well represented in the staging. The staging, a collaboration between Opera Ventures and Scottish Opera, is more successful. What's New on BroadwayHD for October 2020? Although the production was monumentally simple, it told the opera's complicated story effectively. American composer Missy Mazzoli’s lyrical opera sticks faithfully to the structure of von Trier’s tragedy while infusing it with more compassion. Watch a trailer for Breaking the Waves. Director James Darrah and a uniformly fine cast, led by Kiera Duffy and John Moore shared … Jan (John Moore) is a cipher, as is Bess’s loyal sister-in-law, Dodo (Eve Gigliotti), who is something like Emilia, Desdemona’s confidant in Verdi’s “Otello,” but without that character’s crucial dramatic function. While Ms. Duffy, often nearly naked and singing with the cool roundedness of melting ice, creates a subtly ambivalent portrait of a woman both self-important and persecuted, the opera’s other characters are less persuasive. From her first quiet appearance on stage before the music began, Duffy embodied a trouble young woman who falls in love with, and marries, an outsider: a Norwegian oil rig worker Jan, whose near-fatal accident sets in motion a tragic disintegration of Bess’ physical and spiritual being. Click on the banner to find out more.
As Bess, Sydney Mancasola is mesmerising, her expressive vocals setting her apart from the more naturalistic singing of the other cast members. Costume designer Chrisi Karvonides placed the opera firmly in the 1970s with flattering short skirts and sensible low heeled shoes for women and work-soiled oil rigger clothes for the leading men. George Hall writes widely on opera and has contributed regularly to The Stage since 2000.
John Moore (Jan Nyman) and Kiera Duffy (Bess McNeill), “strong music, effective staging and, above all, committed performances”, Reviewed at Kimmel Center, Perelman Theater, Philadelphia on 22 September 2016.
Mazzoli and Vavrek adhere fairly closely to the film’s structure, and this is where the problems start: what works well as narrative on screen doesn’t translate so happily to the stage. She now spends her time attending opera and classical music concerts in New York and in Europe. But after he’s paralyzed in an accident on the rig, he presses her to have sex with other men and tell him about the experience, setting her on the road to ruin in their tight-knit, deeply religious community. Kristin Clayton (left), Sara LeMesh and Robert Wesley Mason in West Edge Opera’s production of “Breaking the Waves… It is not easy to find new operas that command attention, tell their story lucidly and create a powerful, permeating mood. Flawed masterpiece: Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves opens in Philadelphia, https://bachtrack.com/review-mazzoli-breaking-waves-opera-philadelphia-september-2016, https://bachtrack.com/22/270/list-published/16328, https://bachtrack.com/files/251-ako_imamura.jpeg, Opera Philadelphia gives a masterful Verdi Requiem, Forsythe a truly overwhelming Semele at Festival O, To add a comment, please sign in or register.
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It tells the story of Bess, a simple woman of childlike naivete, who sacrifices herself to sexual brutality to save the life of the man she loves. On May 29, 2020, Opera Philadelphia presented the digital premiere of Royce Vavrek and Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves, a story based on the 1996 international film of the same name directed by Lars von Trier. In the eyes of the Calvinist church elders of Skye, where the story is set, Mazzoli could well be considered “froward” – not a misprint but from old Norse and meaning “a person difficult to … https://www.operaphila.org/whats-on/digital-festival/, Sierra Madre Playhouse Relights Its Marquee On October 23, The Robey Theatre Company Presents An Evening Conversation With Sheryl Lee Ralph, Fountain Theatre's RAISE YOUR VOICE – VOTE! There was considerable nudity on stage, but it was not excessive; on stage violence was discreet.
Tenor David Portillo as Dr Richardson brought his penetrating timbre to portray a sympathetic ally.
A fervently devout young woman living on the remote Isle of Skye in Scotland, Bess McNeill undergoes a sexual awakening when she marries Jan Nyman, a handsome oil rig worker. Bess’ tragedy did not deserve an easy absolution and redemption. Vavrek's libretto lept from one emotional peak to the next with precision and security.
Opera Philadelphia’s world premiere Breaking the Waves, based on the 1996 Lars von Trier film, opened to some acclaim, with at least one critic declaring it among the best 21st-century operas yet produced. Breaking the Waves was a tour-de-force for Duffy who remained on stage almost all the time. The Elder then refused to let her continue as a church member. It won the inaugural Best New Opera Award from the Music Critics Association of North America, and was shortlisted for "Best World Premiere" Prize at the International Opera Awards. The world première of Breaking the Waves was a qualified success, with a powerful drama performed with commitment by strong cast and musicians. Available for everyone, funded by readers. On a set of looming walls and fractured beams, his excellent chorus shifts from rig workers to churchgoers to brutal lovers with smooth, telling costume changes — as Bess wanders, nearly mad, from scene to scene.
Gigliotti used her sumptuous mezzo to describe her ambivalence as an outsider who remained in the community and yet retained a more balanced attitude. SOLT and UK Theatre issue guidance for venues in Tiers 2 and 3, Full list of theatres receiving Culture Recovery Fund grants in round two, West End production of Emilia to be streamed online, Safety first: how drama schools are adapting to the coronavirus era. The combination of chamber ensemble, soloists from the Orchestra of Scottish Opera conducted by Stuart Stratford together with synthesiser and electric guitar felt too thin at times, too noisy at others.
He has also contributed to such publications as T... George Hall writes widely on opera and has contributed regularly to The Stage since 2000.
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Opera Philadelphia’s world premiere Breaking the Waves, based on the 1996 Lars von Trier film, opened to some acclaim, with at least one critic declaring it among the best 21st-century operas yet produced.It’s the brainchild of librettist Royce Vavrek and composer Missy Mazzoli, and it … It’s the brainchild of librettist Royce Vavrek and composer Missy Mazzoli, and it certainly was produced in the 21st century. American composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek make a great team. The ambitious, accomplished, dramatically direct opera, a co-commission of Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects that had its premiere here on Thursday, is grander and more impersonal — and also distinguished by its Bess, the fearless, focused soprano Kiera Duffy.
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