Hydrogen Jukebox (Movie Glutton Opera Edition)

In addition to their 3 more traditional operas, the Fort Worth Opera Festival this year threw in a modern work which definitely doesn't fit the usual picture of what an opera is.  Hydrogen Jukebox brings together the music of Philip Glass, one of my favorites, with poems of Allen Ginsberg, the "beat poet" who seems to have written a lot of drivel.

By way of contrast to the majestic Bass Hall, Hydrogen Jukebox was performed in a small theater, with seating for no more than a few dozen people.  I counted only 65-70 people, with a handful of empty seats.  The musicians, an ensemble of only 5 or 6 players, sat at one end of the room.  A sparse set, basically 2 large ladders, occupied the other end.  The audience sat along either side, facing each other on bleacher style seats.  A train track ran down the middle of the theater, and large, long video screens were on each side of the theater, above the audience

Once again, we were blown away by the talent of the musicians and singers Fort Worth Opera is able to attract.  The six singers, 3 men and 3 women, amazed us with their vocal ability and energy.  True to a Glass production, the choreography was not song and dance, Broadway style, but consisted of slow, deliberate motions.  This style seems to have taken much more concentration and stamina than more traditional choreography.

The young and talented cast.

The ensemble played Glass to a T.  Like Glass himself, the director conducted from the keyboard.  He even looked a bit like Glass. . . .  The first half ended with a spoken piece, accompanied by the conductor playing a piece which I believe is from his album Solo Piano (which consists of some of his most beautiful and accessible compositions).  The music throughout was classic Glass, with his trademark use of the voices as instruments.  I loved it.

Unfortunately, the voices were more than instruments: they had an actual libretto to work with.  That's where Ginsberg comes in.  If you know Ginsberg, you know what I'm talking about.  If not, just picture the worst parts of the 1960s and 1970s: anti-war protests, free love, drug culture, draft dodgers.  He is considered a voice of that generation.  So we got to listen to a lot of that tripe.  It's not that he never puts together an interesting phrase--he does--but the whole of it is pretentious, rejecting linguistic conventions just because he can, and throwing out political generalizations that would make Michael Moore blush with their lack of substance.  This is the kind of show and these are the kinds of poems that think they're being profound when they show the White House as a pinata, have same-sex performers kissing, and tie the CIA to the drug trade.

So kudos to Fort Worth Opera for pushing the envelope and bringing non-traditional opera to their festival.  And kudos to the musicians and singers for their fantastic talents on display with this unusual piece.  Too bad all that great music and great talent had to be put to use on such a pointless libretto.

(On an interesting note for this performance: shortly after the lines "Lightning's blue glare fills Oklahoma plains, . . . approaching Texas I saw sheet lightning cover Heaven's corners . . . Apocalypse prophesied--the Fall of America signaled from Heaven" were sung, the lights came on and we had to go to the basement due to a tornado warning!  Later while images of rain were projected on the screens, hail pattering on the darkened skylights augmented the music with realistic sound effects.)

For a review from someone who knows what he's talking about, check the Star-Telegram.

Dracula

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Jeff called to see if I could go with him to hear the Philip Glass Ensemble play Glass's score to Dracula at the Winspear Opera House.  I love Glass's music, have been wanting to go to a performance at the Winspear, and would relish the rare opportunity to spend time with Jeff.  Alas, none of it happened.  Things change when we have a half dozen kids between the two of us!

However, I did find that the good ol' Fort Worth Public Library has a copy of the DVD with the Glass soundtrack!  So I checked it out.  This is the 1931 film, starring Bela Lugosi, with Glass's 1999 score.  On the DVD you can choose the option of watching the movie with or without the score.  The DVD features the score played by the Kronos Quartet, so the PG Ensemble probably played a different arrangement live.  A couple years ago I watched the old Jean Cocteau film La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast) with the Philip Glass score, and figured this would be in similar style.

This version of Dracula, probably the most famous, seems full of cliches.  That's because all of the imitators have made cliches of this film, I would guess!  The hand creeping out of the coffin, the black cape, the funny European accent, all have been copied and parodied to the point of silliness.  That shows what a cultural icon Bela Lugosi's portrayal is.  I kept waiting for Lugosi to say "I vant to suck your blood!" but he never did.  I guess that came in later parodies. . . .

Speaking of parody, how about this.  Early on, when we first see Count Dracula and his wives coming out of their coffins at sundown, we also see a shot of what looks like a bee coming out of a tiny box.  Is that a joke?  Or is it some symbolism, since when a bee stings, it dies, and now this bee has eternal life in Count Dracula's castle?  Then we see a pair of armadillos emerge from a dusty corner.  Are they dead armadillos coming out to hunt for blood?  Do vampires change to werewolves, bats, and armadillos?  Or do armadillos symbolize some specific kind of evil in Transylvania?  I don't know.  It just seemed sort of odd.

On an interesting film history note, this DVD also includes the Spanish version.  It opens with a brief interview of the female lead.  (In the Spanish version, her name is Eva instead of Mina.)  She states that the English cast started filming in the morning, and the Spanish cast came in and used the same sets at night.  I didn't watch the whole Spanish version, but enough to see that there were certainly some differences.  The actress said the critics gave higher marks to the Spanish version.  It made me wonder how often that was the practice in that era of Hollywood, filming English and Spanish versions in tandem.

Something else I wonder about in the story is the fate of Van Helsing, the slayer or hunter of Dracula in many stories.  At the end, after he and Mina's fiance rescue Mina and kill Dracula, the reunited lovers leave the abbey, but Van Helsing stays behind, saying, mysteriously, that he'd be along shortly.  Does he return to Dracula to study the corpse?  Does he drink Dracula's blood to gain immortality?  I don't know.

Dracula is a fun movie to watch out of curiosity.  Obviously, special effects have changed the way we watch movies now.  In this version, the special effects mainly consisted of long stares from Lugosi.  None of the actual biting, or really even the bite marks, were shown.  We never see Count Dracula in his werewolf manifestation, and of course the bats look a little silly flapping around.

Glass's score, like any good film score, does not take the viewers attention away from the movie.  There were times that it didn't seem to fit stylistically, but for the most part added to the experience and intensity of the film.

If you have any interest at all in film history, monster movies, or the Dracula legend, definitely put this on your list to see.  Otherwise, don't go too far out of your way.

Bottom line, 2 stars.