https://youtu.be/abd9nkF1fX4
Pardon the painful audio/visual delay.
Monday, February 1, 2016
A Musing on Opera and Why We Do What We Do
On our first day in St. Petersburg, after getting settled into the Hotel Dostoevsky, our group got all gussied up to shuffle on over to the Mariinsky-2 to see the opera. This particular opera -- conducted by Valery Gergiev himself -- was Semyon Kotko, an old Soviet opera.
Though the show was originally written as borderline government propaganda, the presentation of this particular production moved beyond partisan political commentary in favor of becoming a meditation on what motivates us when we fight each other for our ideologies.
The production’s use of lighting in the show -- particularly choice of color -- was the strongest and most notable technique used in this approach to the show. Rather than melding colors with slow fades to light a scene, the designers of the show opted to illuminate the stage with sharp changes of bold hues. The main colors used were: red, green, white, and blue.
Red was used, quite obviously, to emphasize the zeal of the Red Army protagonists. Green was conversely used to highlight the German antagonists. I take this to suggest that these two colors may represent the conflicting ethoses of the two armies.
White was present on stage primarily when characters were plotting and/or scheming. It was also prominent whenever the Cossacks (who presented in this show as cold, unfeeling brutes) came on stage to wreak their mayhem. I suggest that white was to suggest logos.
Blue lights generally came on during very emotional scenes. I think it is safe to say that blue is pathos in this scenario.
It is interesting to note that the antagonists were limited in the colors they were lit by: as previously mentioned, the Cossacks were only lit in white, and the Germans were mostly lit by green with the occasional white. However, the story’s protagonists, in their peak scenes at least, were lit by white, blue, and red on different levels of the stage -- making an oh-so-subtle Russian flag, perhaps?
I think it’s possible, given this lighting scheme, that the playmakers are trying to remind us to keep a balance of our hearts, minds, and spirits as we fight for what we believe in, lest we blind ourselves to our original intentions.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
Mitya's Love in Review
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