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Frobisher: Three characters in search of an ending

I enjoyed the production of the new opera Frobisher by John Estacio & John Murrell produced by Kelly Robinson and the Calgary Opera at the Banff Centre for the Arts on Sunday 12 Aug 2007.

In the tradition of musicals about theatrical people, this Opera is based on movie people.

The theme is the American Dream, the belief in a new start, and a place to make it in.

Musically, it passed by without much sticking; unlike a musical, in opera there are no big tunes to go away humming. The rising tritone for 'Paradise' was pretty obviously taken from Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, maybe aimed at an audience raised on the 2001 movie.

The music sung was modern but accessible, reminding me of Britten. Estacio's musical language also depicted the Elizabethan court in a way that suggested the time without being a literal merry-down quotation. The chorus of unfortunate seamen had the simplest tune like a sea-shanty.

The performers' voices and diction were very able for this material, so I'd be quite happy to hear the Calgary Opera troupe again. If I saw this opera again, I'd like to pay more attention to the music. My main occupation the first time was catching the words. Although the diction was excellent, I still missed enough words to have to look up at the text display. If I waited until I knew I had missed something, looking up would be too late, it would have already moved on. So I took to glancing at it every few seconds to catch what was coming up. As I was in row C, third from the front, not only had I to crick my neck up quite a bit to see the text, but also the light for the conductor's podium was spilling into my eyes. So if you're going to the Eric Harvie Theatre, book well ahead to get the good seats.

The Wagmanites, the coterie of assistants to the film producer Wagman, was played as a tribute to big musical chorus numbers, entertaining, moving non-stop, very well staged. And ironically although the Elizabethan courtiers were just effete, the modern hangers-on chorus was given the job of stating the main principle of operation for all the characters: appeal to the heart, not the brain.

This key principle of salesmanship was used by Frobisher to get Good Queen Bess to open her purse and once again give the gold and the men for a speculative voyage. Frobisher pitched to Queen Elizabeth what she wanted – prestige, a way to China by the west. Michael projected his own dream on Frobisher, that of a new world where men (what, on their own?) could start again. Of course, we now know that if we humans did discover Paradise, we would be the serpent. He did capture Anna with this dream, though. Anna used the pitch to appeal to Wagman's vanity.

One line which drew a laugh from the audience which I am guessing would mainly consist of academics and Canadians is that of Anna's mother Jessica who said that Wagman would probably not know her because she was a teacher and Canadian. This reference to the self-deprecating Canadian character brought a chuckle.

The plot was fast moving and very well constructed – at no point were we confused between the then and the now, between Frobisher in the 1570s or his ghost  appearing to Anna now, and other cinematic cutaways in the plot.

Michael was dispatched from the story fairly quickly but not from the stage. He was portrayed as vain 'I have dreams to bestow on you, Anna', and self-centred, saying 'love you' (misremembered by Anna as 'I love you') while walking off leaving her alone, and foolish, going on his own without communications or distress signals.

The only moment that I wished would move on a bit was Anna's aria about her love for Michael. As his character had not been developed, except perhaps in the most unflattering way possible, we had no reason to see why she would feel that way for a guy like that. Unless, of course, we were meant to see that as her infatuation.

Anna was the romantic character, in love with an ideal. So was Michael and he projected that on to Frobisher, explaining his search for gold as a search for Eden.

The twist in the story was to offer us three endings.

The first was the classical tragedy, where the romantic heroine goes off to die in the snow pursuing a dream. In real life, anyone who did take off their clothes in the Arctic and lie on the ice would die in a few minutes anyway.

The second was the feel-good Wagman ending. Frobisher returns, apologies for not finding glory but Queen Bess decides that with his experience he's just the man to take on the Pope and the Spaniards in an Armada.

The third was the comforting ending where Anna was in fact alive. Unsaid, I assume that she was immediately rescued by the party of filmmakers, perhaps using modern technology. In older days, that scene would have to be shown, and would include her acceptance of her misguided adventure and her blindness, in true moral tale fashion.  Today's audience would be assumed to fill in that for themselves. The Candide-like ending showed her accepting that only in life can you dream, as her mother looked approvingly on.

Politics

In the third, bourgeois, ending, Anna was now shown as a tame domesticated woman (making stew, however inexpertly) rather than the wild spirit she was before.

For an opera set in the Arctic there was no appearance of an Inuit character in a voice role. Only the sanitised 'ancient Inuit voices'. According to the programme, these were the unseen chorus doing the heavenly voices background. That may have been clear to Canadians who might recognise the language but it was not explicitly shown as such in the opera. I wonder why Inuit voices have to be 'ancient'. Maybe ancient voices are safer, unlike the contemporary more uncomfortable voices. In New Age terms, a romantic like Anna would want to hear voices of encouragement anyway, rather than the more realistic voices of real Inuits who would tell her to get back immediately before she froze to death.

Perhaps one could imagine other endings, which maybe is the point of the opera – to start us thinking and speculating.

Patrick O'Beirne, 13 Aug 2007

Link: http://www.banffcentre.ca/frobisher/

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Banff music and dance

Sat 4 Aug, Young Dancers, an end-of-term presentation of what they could do in classical and jazz dance. Very impressive, especially as some were very young, aged 12 and 13. Only three male dancers.

Tue 7 Aug, Summer music in St. George's in the Pines, Banff. A nice mix of song and string quartet including an amusing piece "Don't let that horse eat that violin"

Wed 15 Aug, Mighty Popo. Blues, African singer, drummer, guitar. Easy listening for a summer evening, although described as 'acoustic' this was in fact heavily amplified.

Sat 18 Aug Banff Festival Orchestra conducted by Alain Trudel, with Anton Kuerti as soloist in Brahms' second piano concerto.
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/Media_Releases/2007/0810_anton_kuerti.asp
The orchestra of young players was assembled for a four-week run. Alain Trudel looked to be just the kind of conductor I'd like to be in front of, economical and supportive. At this event, Anton Kuerti was awarded the Banff Centre's prestigious National Arts Award of a prize and a residency. The small orchestra, with reflecting sound panels behind them, was projected into a rather dry acoustic, and the piano also sounded lighter than expected. I am used to larger scale recordings of this piece with a heroic wash of sound, so it was like I was hearing the detail for the first time. The effect was that of a niche boutique wine rather than a heavy claret. The third movement was played almost like chamber music, in a contemplative manner.

The second piece was Shostakovich's 9th Symphony which gave individual members of the orchestra a chance to shine. They obviously relished the perky tune with a hint of the danse macabre.

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Dance, Talks, and more at Banff Centre

The Banff centre promotes artistic activity as an alternative to the hard-skills component of most management training centres. The marketing term they use is Leadership Development rather than the '80's Management Development. The programs are for corporate, government, Aboriginal, arts, and not-for-profit (NfP) sectors. The series on Leading Creatively included conversations on Leadership Jazz, Extreme Leadership, the Ecology of Business, Leading in a world of Climate Change, and the Dance workshop that we attended.

This was at the end of a weekend where about eight people worked with a dance company Motus O Dance to develop their attention to movement and body. The facilitator asked the audience to describe some situation they recently encountered on their way to Banff and the group improvised actions to illustrate it. They did well, and when I asked how they knew what to do together, one participant said that they had learned to pay deep attention to what was going on, and they expected the skills they learned here to be of use back in the workplace.

I asked a member of Motus O how they worked with engineers and IT people (think of Dilbert and Dance...) and he illustrated a way in which they elicited moves from a group recently that avoided embarrassment and withdrawal by playing back gestures natural to the people, actions which they were already able to own.

It was an interesting and enjoyable couple of hours.

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