|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
A Glass Pelleas
| Article
# : |
21929 |
|
|
Section : |
THE ARTS
|
| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1993 |
1,564 Words |
| Author
: |
Melinda Bargreen
Melinda Bargreen is music critic for the Seattle Times. |
In the shadow of the Space Needle, that thirty-year old symbol of the Seattle skyline lies an opera company that has made its reputation by treading unknown territory. It was Seattle Opera that first staged Wagner's mammoth four-opera epic The Ring of the Nibelung in both German and English in back-to-back annual summer cycles. And in the nine seasons since the arrival of general director Speight Jenkins, the company's new twists have included everything from an Orpheo ed Euridice that featured the opera debut of maverick choreographer Mark Morris to a joint Soviet-Seattle version of Prokofiev's War and Peace mounted in the days before the Iron Curtain succumbed to rust.
Just when you think you've got the measure of the company, along comes something completely new. This spring, it was a $1.3 million production of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande with the first stage sets ever designed by Dale Chihuly, America's leading glass artist. Known for his use of vivid color and fantastic nature-based forms, Chihuly was perhaps a natural choice for dramatizing Debussy's transparent, impressionistic score.
Chihuly also was a shrewd choice for Seattle audiences, which love his glass so much that more people flocked to last year's Chihuly show at the Seattle Art Museum than attended the gala opening of the museum itself in December 1991. This is a city that takes its art--and its opera--seriously. Seattle is one of the largest per-capita opera-going cities in the country.
When you factor in the reputation of this production's conductor, Gerard Schwarz-the beloved and much-recorded music director of the Seattle Symphony--you realize why expectations were running particularly high for the new Pelleas. Photos of Chihuly's twelve blown-glass set designs, later realized for the stage in materials ranging for fiberglass to vinyl, were immortalized on posters and brochures and a handsome collectible souvenir book. Ticket sales went through the roof, with the company enjoying the biggest and fastest box office in its history--this despite the fact that Pelleas is not exactly the household name that Carmen or La Boheme are. Chihuly, originally attracted by the idea of designing huge pieces for the stage, produced vivid, gorgeous pieces symbolic of green shafts of translucent fiber-glass representing the forest; violent reds in a tube like formation suggesting Golaud's sick jealousy; spectacular yellow "tresses" evoking Melisande's Rapunzel-like hair; baroque curlicues limning the castle of Allemonde.
"Over the years my architectural installations had
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
