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Oresteia

By Ronni Reich
Backstage original link
September 15, 2008

Photo by: Richard Termine

Iannis Xenakis' opera Oresteia isn't really an opera. Dancers take center stage, flanked by a speaking, singing, ululating, woodblock-playing chorus, creating... what? A choral ballet? Chamber music-theatre? Oratorio plus? It's hard to say. But labels and expectations flung far aside, the work is endlessly intriguing, with awe-inspiring craft in both the music and its execution.

Based on Aeschylus' trilogy, Xenakis' work, finalized in 1992 and now in its U.S. premiere, follows the basic lines of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and Eumenides (Furies). Its only soloist chants as often as he sings, and his falsetto appears as often as his bass. In splitting the single singer into different vocal ranges and styles and having him flip from man to woman in short bursts, Xenakis creates the impression of many warring voices within one, perhaps of Orestes grappling with his family history. The chaos and inner conflict surrounding his matricide become vivid, and though his story cannot match the cries of the Furies in volume, Xenakis illustrates it with tense, volatile energy.

Seismic waves of percussion travel across the stage, with vigorous drum solos and clanging triangles prominently featured. Low brass rumbles forebodingly, alternating with penetrating, elegiac combinations of flute, oboe, and cello harmonics. Xenakis captures anger and pathos, confusion and rapture in his soundscape, keeping a brisk pace throughout.

In its church-style chant and theatrical, impassioned reactions, the chorus suggests both Ancient Greek life and traditional performance. The chorus' role is rhythmically, dramatically, and vocally demanding — to say nothing of singing in ancient Greek — and the singers' precision and vivacity are striking. The International Contemporary Ensemble (known as ICE) plays with lucidity, grit, and sharp musicality under conductor Steven Osgood. Solo percussionist David Schotzko gives an inspired performance, spurring on the drama.

Though evocative, Xenakis' music cannot easily be called accessible, and it is largely to the credit of choreographer and director Luca Veggetti that it comes off so clearly. Veggetti converts Xenakis' anxious rolls of sound to intricate body waves, with music seeming to go through each muscle of the back and shoulders.

Veggetti accentuates the raggedness of Xenakis' lines and Aeschylus' characters not only by working with the music but also by working against it. Not every elaborately notated passage is met by furious movement; starkly still dancers, painstakingly slow walking, and crouched, contorted poses serve as contrasts and further the work's tension. Through dancers Olivia Ancona, Kristi Capps, Frances Chiaverini, Matthew Branham, R. Colby Damon, and Stephen Laks, characters including Kassandra, Zeus, and Helen become flesh rather than narration, each distinct in image and personality.

An extension of the stage jutting out to the right side of the audience showcases the dancers' movements and is almost the production's sole stage dressing. Everyone wears black, there's not a set piece in sight, and an autoharp and metallic flags comprise the prop collection. This is enough; Xenakis and Veggetti give us plenty to take in. But for those who require still more stimulation, projections of Pascal Delcey's original art fill a top corner, colorful abstractions resembling zoomed-in pictures of fireworks.

The performance culminates in a riotous cry for peace, complete with a children's choir and audience participation. In most contexts such an ending would be hokey, but the performers' spirit is infectious, and being enveloped by Xenakis at his most euphoric proves highly satisfying.