Prima la musica

The end of the beginning

At first I thought about titling this post "The End of Bliss", and then I realised that was completely inappropriate, because it wasn't. Closing night in Melbourne might have concluded the opera's premier Australian run, but that's as much finality as I'm willing to acknowledge. And not just because there's still the two Edinburgh Festival performances and the new production in Hamburg to come. What I saw on Saturday evening was an opera with all the polish, vitality and pliability to keep on keeping on, beyond this country, this cast or the first flurry of hype. Bliss as an opera, as an independent musical entity, has emerged with all the strength and polish I had hoped for, and more (and in different flavours, if you can have flavoured polish) besides. 

That's not to say that it outdid my Sydney experience. It didn't, and it didn't need to, and in fact I'm not even sure that the comparison is relevant. I mean, if I do throw them all in together, then I suppose I would rate this as perhaps the third-best performance of the seven I've seen. That sounds awful, doesn't it? Consider that the best was one of the thrillingest nights of opera I've ever had, however, and it's not nearly so bad. And even number seven on that list, if I worked it out, would still have been an excellent performance, because there weren't any that weren't. I loved it every time, and the difference from performance to performance has really not been so much in the degree of that love as in the variety.

So Sydney Bliss and Melbourne Bliss have been two different creatures. Two, rather than seven. I saw it six times here, and while each performance of course has its own individual existence — and for many people constituted the entirety of their Bliss experience — for me, the season felt much more like six segments of a single, developing whole.  And it also felt — there's no other way to put this — like it was mine. I felt (and still feel, and will probably always feel) a degree of possessiveness about Bliss, and it's not surprising that that emotion was strongest during its Sydney season. Sydney's Bliss is the Bliss I ate, breathed and slept, and the one with which I fell in love. 

Melbourne's isn't. But it's many other things, and above all, it's the Bliss which properly crystallised the sentiments in my first paragraph. After a month off and a change of setting, I was able detach myself just a little, and to engage with Bliss on terms closer to those on which I'd engage with any performance of a favourite opera — still besotted, still (let's face it) biased, but nevertheless, not personally invested in quite the same way. Which, while less intense and, alright, a bit less fun than my Sydney experience, confirmed what I had already more or less concluded, which is that Bliss doesn't depend on my or anyone else's personal attachment to be brilliant. It just is brilliant. 

This has all come out a bit more clinically than I expected. (Although to be properly clinical it would probably need fewer italics.) But, hey, you get enough breathless rhapsodising from me anyway, without my manufacturing it for a performance which elicited a different sort of positive response. I'm sure you get my drift; at least, I hope you do.

I've also neglected to say anything much about the actual performance. Which is sort of ridiculous of me, although then again, I don't know what there is to add — all previous praise applies, basically. Merlyn Quaife was a wonder, Lorina Gore was adorable, David Corcoran is Going Places, Taryn Fiebig owns the role of Lucy in perpetuity, Barry Ryan was brilliant (and his Alex was feistier in Melbourne than in Sydney), Kanen Breen is a fiendishly good adlibber of insults. You know all this. There were a couple of tweaks in the staging — Harry and Honey pledged their love further downstage, Alex and Harry did an impressively elaborate office-chair dance instead of just skidding around, and Honey was, inexplicably, a blonde. I think a couple of spoken syllables are now sung, probably just for clarity's sake. Brett Dean's unfathomably rich score is even richer played from a decent orchestra pit; I was hearing things all night that I hadn't even known were there. I did struggle a little (from Row H-for-Harry) with the effect of said pit, and of the larger space, on the balance between singers and orchestra; I suspect I've spoilt myself a bit here by always sitting so close. The foyers and escalators of the Arts Centre continue to defeat both my navigational sense and my phone. And what else — oh, yes, that's right — Peter Coleman-Wright was and is made of magic, his Harry beautiful beyond words. He's a privilege, a delight and a total star, and I — in case you hadn't noticed — just think the world of him. 

And now I think that really might be it. We've reached the end of the beginning and the beginning of — well, who knows. The future. A long, happy life. As they say in the films, it's not goodbye, just au revoir. It's been grand, Bliss, and heaven knows I'll miss you — but I've a good feeling about you, and I think we'll meet again.

The Art of Bliss

As you may or may not (but should) know, Opera Australia is currently running a competition in Melbourne, asking people to spread the word about Bliss by taking posters out and about and tweeting photos of their work. I'm not sure how much of a happening thing it's turned out to be, but it's an idea I for one absolutely love, and thus something I was determined to weasel my way into, despite not living in Melbourne, having little use for the prize and — until recently — not having a poster at my disposal. 

Well, who needs prizes anyway? I do it all for love, don't I? And the kindly soul behind @OAPR obligingly provided me with a poster. So I was all set this weekend to take my 2D Harry Joy out on the town for an afternoon — perhaps even an evening — and document our excursion with my trusty (albeit pretty terrible) iPhone camera. However. Such ventures require at least one partner in crime, and at such short notice (and with such an odd mission at hand) I proved unable to find one. Curses.

I couldn't abandon ship — or Harry — entirely, however. So I had to think laterally about how far afield I could take my poster without actually leaving the house. The answer? Well, since travelling through space was out of the question, I opted to travel through time.  And, um, dimensions of reality and artistic expression. Or something. Or to put it another way — I've Photoshopped the Bliss poster into some paintings, and here they are.

I know. This might be the pinnacle of my Bliss geekery. I don't care. It was a lot of fun, and what else, after all, are long weekends for? (PS I think if you click an image you can see them all at a larger size. You know, if you feel the urge.)

In bocca ad elefante

Bliss opens in Melbourne tonight. Since I can't be there in person until closing night, all I can for now is be there in spirit — and make this humble little video offering to its gorgeous cast. If they pick up where the Sydney season left off, then Melbourne is in for something extraordinary. 

And speaking of videos, I might as well tell you that "Hitler Misses Bliss", my #donotmissBliss Downfall parody, is no more. With eerie timing, its copyright holders caught up with it, and I discovered last night that it had been blocked. It's a shame, but it was sort of inevitable, and in any case, it had had its day. We made it past 2000 views, which is far more than I ever expected; and I had several delightfully surreal conversations about it with some very important people. We may never know whether or not Hitler managed to get a ticket for the Melbourne season — I just hope every other operatically inclined person in the city has done so. Do not miss Bliss, Melbourne, and I'll see you — and wonderful Harry — on May 1st, to bid farewell.

Bliss, a love story

Heaven knows I have channeled all my anticipatory energies into Bliss.  I read the novel, bought (though never watched) the DVD, listened to the orchestral suite and other Brett Dean bits. I promoted it online with a determination which surprised even me. I threw myself into the Twitter campaign. I read every interview and article I could. I mastered the art of subtitles on Movie Maker, just so I could make a surreal Downfall parody. I compulsively photographed the poster and scanned city streets for the back-of-taxi ads. I organised a costume party. And I booked tickets for the entire season before I'd even seen a single performance, an honour not even accorded to Arabella or Peter Grimes. After a long time just being quietly intrigued that it was happening — and pleased that Peter Coleman-Wright was in it because, you know, I quite like him — I turned Bliss into a sort of crucial life event, and the focus of as much explosive excitement as I could muster. 

Which was reckless of me, I suppose, but what could I do? After all, there was never really any possibility that I'd hate it. Even if the music had been unbearable — though frankly, I've never yet run up against any operatic music I'd describe as such — the cast, director and source material were all guarantees against a total trainwreck. And let's be honest, any evening involving three hours in the company of Peter Coleman-Wright is fine by me. Still, lack of hatred — or even just moderate esteem — isn't nearly enough, especially not for a enthusiast like me. What I wanted was the thing I couldn't guarantee. I wanted to fall in love. I could feign a more rational outlook if required, and find a hundred things about Bliss to admire and respect, but the fact is that without that ultimate seduction, the experience would always have been less than complete. 

And it happened. But not right away. I mean, opening night was special. It had to be. It was a capital-E Event. It was the culmination of so many hopes and expectations and of so much preparation, and it was wonderful. It was the only night that garnered a decent standing ovation, too. It still wasn't my night, though. Bliss had caught my imagination and sparked a good deal of affection, but it hadn't captured my heart just yet. Instead, it was my brain that was engaged. I was looking at it lovingly, but critically too: spotting flaws alongside delights. Opening night gave me plenty of fodder for a rave review, and that's essentially what I gave it, but the urge to rush out into the night and declare my love? That hadn't kicked in yet.

Already, though, I felt that it might. While I was troubled by what I perceived as the opera's theatrical shortcomings, I also felt that these had as much do with my own struggle to separate the opera from the novel as anything else. Because on that first night, of course, the novel was my only point of reference — I had nothing else to compare it to. Afterwards, I could compare it to itself; I could respond to each performance in the context of those which had come before, and thus approach the opera as a separate entity. The trick was to convince myself that the material which Amanda Holden had necessarily jettisoned in adapting the novel wasn't now missing from the opera — the opera was an alternate Bliss in which that stuff simply didn't exist. And while one performance wasn't nearly enough to begin to take in Brett Dean's unbelievably rich and complex score, I could already feel it seeping into my veins. No, I couldn't hum any of the tunes (well, except "You won't die") after opening night, but unlike more than one reviewer, I find it impossible to view that as some sort of failing — in the style of Groucho Marx, I think I'd tend to distrust that any opera which I could hum after only one hearing.

The second performance was thus a bit of a clincher — I wanted confirmation of my hopes and my optimistic theories, and I got it. The performances were better and less tentative, my reservations about the drama of it began to matter less, and I could feel my mind begin to wrap itself a bit more tightly around the score. It seemed everything was heading in the right direction. I was still waiting for my own personal explosion, but after this one, felt surer it would come. The third performance, the matinée, was the best yet, helped along by what seemed to me the most responsive audience, if also the smallest. 

It was a turning point for me, too. I felt as if  I'd finally caught up with Bliss; that I had absorbed the basic shape and texture of it now, and could thus really focus on the particular glories of a single performance, rather than feel I was still coming to terms with the opera itself. In other words, it had become a part of my repertoire, if still in a fledgling sense — I felt I was coming to Bliss now in, broadly speaking, the same state of mind as I did to Tosca, or as I will to Sonnambula or (tempting fate here) Kat'a Kabanova. Not quite engraved upon my soul like Don Giovanni or Madama Butterfly or La voix humaine, but definitely a part of my musical consciousness. 

Number four — also known as 80s Night — was a little bit different, an amicable conflict between Bliss-as-event and Bliss-as-opera. The event side was magnificent. For once, my somewhat carefully laid plans came to fruition. At interval we met Brett Dean, a completely lovely man and the only person all evening who appreciated my Joy Division t-shirt without being prompted. And afterwards the leading man obligingly came down to inspect us in our finery, managing (as he does) to charm everybody within a ten-metre radius in the process. Programs were signed, compliments offered, photos taken. So from that point of view it was a thorough success. But our seats at the brass-section end of the front row were not ideal, and while I could appreciate how well everyone was singing and playing — and was heartened to see the standard hadn't slipped one bit — the skewed balance made it hard for me to bask in the glory of it all as completely as I would have liked. And I was still waiting for That Performance.

Which, as I expounded at length, was exactly what came next. No need to repeat all that here, but the crux of it is that here, at performance number five, was where I fell. Actually, no. Not where I fell, but where I realised I had already fallen. I loved it. Not as an idea, or an event, or a vehicle for a favourite singer, but just for itself. More than that, it had become mine. The #donotmissBliss campaign had given me a sense of personal investment in the opera, but that sense of ownership is different, less tangible and more exciting. Without it, I could still have enjoyed my six performances and lavished genuine praise upon Bliss, but with it, well, all that stuff is a lot more fun — and it's the reason this blog post is so unbelievably long. Adoration, as we know, always does make me long-winded. 

And closing night was just beautiful. Not heavy or solemn. In spirit, it was like a three-hour version of Harry's final sonnet — peaceful, radiant, at ease with life and with the eventual end of it. The cast seemed more relaxed than ever, to the point that we even enjoyed the odd, harmless blooper. Peter's Harry seemed warmer and looser-limbed than ever, and in the restaurant, more wonderfully drunk than ever. Later, in the asylum and back at home, there was something eerie about him, a sad, quiet sense of helplessness. He was doing less, it seemed, than he had in previous performances, and once I'd adjusted to that, the effect was unexpectedly poignant. The sonnet itself was some kind of perfect. It was the right way to finish.

Not that it has finished. One season down, two more to go — for this cast — and a second production before the year is out. I hope it won't finish then, either. I want Bliss to live. Not just on principle, although that would be enough, but because I love it. I'm not much interested in whether it's the Great Australian Opera — I'm not even sure such a creature will ever exist, or need to. It's just a really, really good opera and one which deserves a meaningful future. Perfect it ain't, but when the ink dries and the hype settles, I'd like to think we'll come to accept the flaws of this opera as we do those of (let's face it) every single other opera ever written, and let its brilliance flourish. Bliss is a thing of beauty — so let's hope it is indeed a Joy for ever. 

Bliss

Not that I am psychic or anything, but the fact remains that I woke up yesterday morning convinced that the evening's performance of Bliss would be the best yet. Having acquired this habit of seeing entire seasons of things (you know, provided they have a Barker or a Coleman-Wright in them) I've learnt to expect that One Show in which everything is just right — the performance in which everything seems to come together and explode in magnificence, and which maintains a sort of white-hot quality in my memory. Voices flow more freely and are more beautiful than ever, the staging slicker, characterisation at its best and most riveting, orchestra aflame. All those qualities, all at once. 

That was the show I spent most of yesterday expecting, which any law of jinxes will tell you is a very foolish thing to do. I should have spent the day trying to talk myself down. But the conviction remained strong and I even took the rash step of disclosing it on Twitter, for all to see. Wouldn't I have felt silly if the show had been nothing more than very good? Or even if it had been excellent, but only as excellent as all those preceding it.

Well, I don't know how I knew, but I was right. So right it almost hurt. Last night's Bliss was far and away the best of the run so far. It was the one I'd been waiting for, not just since opening night, but since my excitement about the show began, lo these many months ago. And now I'm happier than ever that I held off on the Big Bliss Blog Post, because this is the performance which deserves that kind of documentation. Had I written the long blog review back at the start, it would inevitably have had a sort of anticipatory quality — I would have been trying to express both how I felt then and there, and how I expected I'd feel when it really took flight. Different story now. I'm here not to speculate, but to overflow.

I sensed within a minute that my own crackling excitement was going to be matched. Peter doesn't even sing a note in the first scene, but there was already a freedom and intensity in his performance which boded well, and when he woke up in hospital and sang his first lines, those same qualities came rippling through in his singing as well. I'm not sure when I've heard him in finer voice. He slid between forced jollity and abject fear with touching vulnerability; seemed more alive than ever to the revelations of Betty's New York aria; and when at last the Vision came I knew beyond a doubt we'd arrived at the Night of Nights. 

So there we were in our elevated state and there we stayed; or at least, I certainly did, and the cast and orchestra seemed to as well. In fact it just got better. Every element in place, with the brilliance of each seeming to feed off — and feed into — every other. Dynamite, just like the advance publicity promised, and long before Betty had struck her match. I found myself drawn to the edge of my seat, I found my jaw dropping — cliché after cliché, but all of them true — and I cried more than once, which hasn't happened before in this season. I also just about lost it with laughter during the argument between Harry and Johnny, something which has never happened to me in the Opera Theatre before, though it's happened a few times at the Con. (One of the best things about sitting near the stage for Bliss is getting to hear the ad-libbed insults which Peter and Kanen throw at each other as Johnny chases Harry around the stage. Comedy gold.)

Now I will return to Harry shortly. But it seems a convenient moment to dwell a little longer on the frankly stunning supporting performances in this opera than  in my printed reviews, where word limits obliged me to rush through them in half-sentences so that Peter could have a paragraph. 

I'm not sure I can adequately express the ferocious wonder that is Merlyn Quaife's Betty Joy. Until now I'd known Merlyn only by her formidable reputation and had never heard her sing. Let's just say she lives up to that reputation, and then some. Her role is quite insanely written, really, and yet she tackles it with fearlessness and ruthless agility, and eventually unearths a complexity — beauty, even? — in this hard-to-love woman which makes her hellish end as poignant as it is poetically just. (And may I just say how much I adore the wordless scene in which the police arrive to tell Lucy and David what has happened. Hats were never more movingly removed, nor a revolve more perfectly utilised. Neil Armfield, I love you.)

Lorina Gore is just irresistible as Honey B. She's as loveable as Betty isn't. And while the role might be written around a prettier, sweeter voice, it's still exceptionally challenging in terms of the tessitura and coloratura facility it draws upon. Lorina handles all that gorgeously, though, and last night's was the most gorgeous of all. Her stunning, mezza voce "I don't come from anywhere" was responsible for my first tears of the evening (actually, my first of the season now I think of it), and her "Ah Harry, my Harry" had a rawness and depth of feeling it's not quite reached before. 

I need also to rave about both Taryn Fiebig and David Corcoran. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best thing I've ever seen or heard Taryn do. She is in fabulous voice, she captures both Lucy's schoolgirlishness and her very real pain, and she is utterly heartbreaking in her final confrontation with her father — "Stay! Please! Stay!" — I'm welling up just thinking about it. David, meanwhile, just knocks me over afresh with every performance. The vitality, commitment and tonal brilliance of his singing are very special indeed, and it's really quite strange to see his name in the back of the program as a Young Artist when his artistry seems so fully formed. He is a treasure, and provided the company treats him properly, I think he's just going to keep getting better. I can't say enough in praise of his performance here.

Forgive me if I slip back into one-singer-one-sentence mode now, it's the only way to keep this post from growing longer than Amanda Holden's libretto. I think my first plaudit has to go to Kanen Breen. I love his American accent. It's like listening to a golden-age Broadway musical. (That's praise.) It's also quite honestly some of the most beautiful singing I've ever heard from him: "I am redundant" in particular sits perfectly in his voice. And I think Shane Lowrencev is just quietly pulling off a bit of a tour de force in his three roles, particularly as they're so diverse. He's outstanding (and hilarious) as Reverend Des and one of the policemen, but it's the eerie soulfulness he brings to Nurse which really gets to me, and which makes that my favourite of his roles. Stephen Smith is a delight in his two roles: particularly as the other police officer, with his coloratura flashes and slick, vaguely creepy demeanour. And he does kind of look as if he were born to wear that uniform.

And Barry Ryan! He's just as right as Alex. I love the slightly childish quality he brings to him — you see it when Harry pushes him around in his office chair, during his drunken tantrum at the Hilton, and then above all in the asylum. The Harry/Alex duet is still one of my absolute favourite parts of the opera — last night I was practically dancing in my seat to it — and I also love the way he delivers the lines "It's my punishment...For what we do here." Henry Choo's two roles have both grown on me, but particularly Aldo, the Italian waiter who sings about cancer. I didn't love it the first time, but his little aria has crawled inside my head now and I've changed my mind. There's something somehow spooky about him. 

The all-encompassing fabulousness of last night's performance improved Milijana Nikolic's Mrs Dalton as well, her monologue more intelligible and pointed than ever — and she certainly does cut an extraordinary figure in those heels and that wig. Teresa La Rocca and Jane Parkin are excellent in their very brief appearance as the two nurses (who scope out in minutes all the truths to which Harry has been oblivious for two decades). I'm especially taken with Jane, whose diction and charisma augur very well indeed — can't wait to see her in something more substantial, now that she's a Young Artist. Malcolm Ede is good fun as both Harry's Neighbour and the doctor who comes to take Harry away and ends up with Alex instead. 

About the chorus, all I can do is state the obvious. They're exemplary. Of course they are. That's what they do. They deserve medals for the asylum scene, with extra stars for the boys in the boardroom. Particularly Margaret Plummer for her valiantly loony "O for the wings of a dove" and Sam Roberts-Smith for his fantastic broad accent ("So close to the product!"). The orchestra is magic too, and particularly so last night. We love you, Elgar Howarth. If only this one had been the radio broadcast.

And then there's Peter. From the outset his Harry was an extraordinary creation and has become more so with each performance. Last night, though, was not just the next step in that process. It was beyond that. He took possession of Harry, Harry took possession of him. Every facet of his performance seemed first to fall into place and then to rise up and form something better and fierier than just A Sterling Performance. Magic is what it was, I suppose. This was his funniest, most vivid, most complex, most outrageous and most ultimately moving Harry yet, sung with searing beauty and exquisitely characterised. Unless by some miracle closing night outdoes it — and you never know, it might — this will be the Harry who hangs around in my head for years to come. Pure Joy.

A Night of Eighties Bliss

Thursday evening's performance of Bliss was also the occasion of another much-awaited event, namely The Mad Scene's Eighties Night. It was a brilliant night, during which we not only flaunted our fabulous costumes, but also met both the composer and the leading man. So naturally there are more photos than just the above. I've already posted the album on the Mad Scene profile, but since I know there are some of you who can't (or won't) do Facebook, I've now put them on Flickr as well. You'll find the album here. Enjoy!

Mitigated Bliss

There's been a fair bit of comment around the internets regarding Amanda Holden's libretto for Bliss. More negative than positive, perhaps, but I'd say that's pretty standard for a libretto. If you hate it, you say something. If you like it, it becomes enfolded in the music and you probably don't need to make much comment on it unless pressed. I tend to think unobtrusiveness is just as admirable a quality for a libretto as mindblowing poetry, maybe more so, since it's arguably less subjective.

Anyway, I wouldn't exactly call Amanda Holden's libretto unobtrusive, but I do think that it's very much at the service of music and story, and in that respect, I like it quite a lot. Others have taken issue with the quality of its poetry, but I haven't their concerns. Admittedly, there are some infelicities, but I think these are mostly the product of pounding Carey's vast plotlines into such compact form. Take Harry's and Honey's romance, for instance. A century or two ago, this might have been given the entire opera to develop, and it has  far ampler space in the novel. Here,  though, there's a lot of other stuff going on, and it has to be squeezed into a few quick scenes, which means complex feelings must be voiced in a very concise — and thus potentially rather trite — manner. I don't think "Usually I don't feel a thing, but with you it's different" is a hugely satisfying reduction of Honey's whole complicated awakening by Harry, but what can you do? There's not really room for much more. "Come and find me, I shall be waiting/then life will have meaning" is a bit syrupy for my tastes, too, but it is actually true, and with so little space, telling trumps showing. 

For the most part, though, I like the way Holden has written this libretto. It wouldn't play well as spoken dialogue, but that for me is a point in its favour. A couple of years ago, I spent a lot of time (too much, really) comparing Philip Littell's libretto for Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire with the play. Now there's a libretto that would work as spoken dialogue, because it's basically just an abridged version of the play, with a few long passages worked in to resemble arias. I don't, however, think it sings very well. Amanda Holden's words do sing. They read, even in recitative, like words waiting for music: there's a heightened, poetic and faintly rhythmic quality to even the most mundane utterances, which, while your mileage may well vary, is exactly what I like in a libretto, even a clumsy one. (Which this isn't.)

If I do have a bone to pick, it's not with the style but with the structure. Yet even this feels pretty unfair, because turning this tangled, tangential web of a novel into twelve punchy scenes must have been (sorry) a Hell of a job, and Holden really has done a pretty spectacular job of it. There are just some scenes which I feel suffer from having been so very streamlined, where so much of the novel's background and explanation has been stripped away that the sense of some actions is somewhat lost. There are scenes, and aspects of character, which I have the feeling only make sense to me because I can fill in the gaps from the novel. Alex's secretly rewritten reports, Betty's New York fixation, Harry's "Ballad of Little Titch" — I'm not sure how well I'd process these if I'd come to the opera cold, and I wonder whether some of this stuff (I'm thinking of Titch in particular) might have been retained more for its musical possibilities than its dramatic necessity.

And yet, you know, it's funny. I started this post — and particularly the last paragraph — expecting to ramble on this subject for a while, but as I sit here and go over the opera in my head, and re-read the libretto (huge thumbs up to Opera Australia for including it in the program, by the way), I'm finding less and less to pick at. It ain't flawless, but the longer I sit with it, the smaller its flaws seem. That doesn't mean they should be ignored, and I imagine there's editing to be done before this opera reaches its last-absolutely-the-last-final-full-stop form, but nor are they its undoing. More importantly — and much more subjectively — I'm discovering such affection for this opera that I just can't bring myself to dwell on even reasonable criticisms. There were scenes I had every intention of pulling apart, but doing so means re-living them, and when I do that, it's not the faults but the delights which come back in strongest focus. 

Maybe that's a bit of a cop-out. But it's also, at least within my own little world, a good sign for Bliss. It means I'm getting attached. There aren't many perfect operas, and even the ones you think are perfect have probably been hauled over the coals by somebody else at some point. The real question is whether you treat the imperfections with scorn or affection, irritation or indulgence — and the longer I spend with Bliss, the more irresistibly I veer towards the latter. 

Twice the Bliss

Since I (and the cast, obviously) are only about twelve hours from a third Bliss, I do want to say just a few words about the second. In fact all that really needs to be said is that it did exactly what I had hoped and expected it would, which was to improve and deepen in pretty much every respect. Everything and everyone seemed just a bit freer, more at home, and more alive, which is hardly surprising. (It's also convenient, since this was the one that was filmed and broadcast.) 

As I tweeted at the time, opening night was opening night, but performance #2 was where I think Bliss really began. In particular, Peter Coleman-Wright, extraordinary as he was on opening night, inhabited Harry even more fully — and with even greater warmth — the second time around. My sitting even closer (front row this time) may have helped too. I also found the dramatic progression of it far more satisfying on a second viewing; I felt far less mired in the baggage of the novel, and better able to appreciate the opera as a separate and different creation. It definitely helps to know the contours of the piece as a whole right from the start; one can begin to measure the show against itself, rather than its sources. 

Very much looking forward to tomorrow's matinée. I've started finding myself humming tiny snippets — "you can't beat 'em so join 'em", "Charybdis", "Ah, Harry, my Harry" — which must be a good sign, and which makes me even hungrier to hear the whole thing again. Besides, there are aspects I want to write about, but which need at least one more viewing before I feel I can do so. The libretto, for instance, and Harry himself. And of course, the post I'm having the most difficulty holding back, which is the obligatory Why Peter Coleman-Wright Is So Impossibly Wonderful post. It will come. I'm just collecting as many reasons as possible. See you tomorrow, perhaps.

(PS Note that Pathways to Bliss has been updated with links to the ABC2 broadcast on iView, and to parts 2 and 3 of Kanen Breen's video diary.)

Pazza di Aroldo

People don't really do insertion arias these days, but if Lorina Gore, or any subsequent Honey B, ever feels she'd like something more to sing, I have a suggestion. (The staging's quite well suited too, although the costumes would need to be updated.)
 

Seriously, I'm amazed that not a single review or article about Bliss has worked this song into its headline. 

Pathways to Bliss

OK. After last night's funny little review-that-wasn't, here's something more matter of fact. A Bliss linkfest. I'll try to keep updating and re-posting it as additions surface.

Background | True history of the Bliss gang (The Australian/Matthew Westwood | A Joy in hell as Bliss hits the stage [includes photos & audio] (ABC Local/Matthew Perkins) | A long-delayed Bliss is fulfilled at last (Sydney Morning Herald/Bryce Hallett) |  Blissful awakening (The Age/Michael Shmith) | Opera Australia hopes for happiness (Sydney Morning Herald/Bryce Hallett) | Bliss brings Aussie accent to opera (Nine News/Alyssa Braithwaite) | Opera-lovers embrace tree-hugger [includes video] (The Australian/Matthew Westwood 

Interviews | Brett Dean on the Music Show  [radio]| Brett Dean with Margaret Throsby [radio] | Brett Dean with David Allenby [print] | Brett Dean with Time Out Sydney | Peter Coleman-Wright on the Music Show [radio] | Brett Dean, Neil Armfield, Peter Coleman-Wright, David Corcoran and Alice Babidge, all in Allerta! | Barry Ryan with me [right here on this blog]

Reviews | Blissful performances on anti-hero's journey (Sydney Morning Herald/Peter McCallum) | Compelling mutation of a Peter Carey masterwork (The Australian/Murray Black) | Long live Bliss - a joy forever (The Age/Michael Shmith) | Bliss (The Stage/Jeremy Eccles) | Bliss has the potential to go far (The Opera Critic/Yours truly) | Bliss - Opera Australia (Adelaide Now/Peter Burdon)

Photos | Photo essays by Bridget Elliot (Australian Music Centre) | Sydney Morning Herald | AAP Image 

Video | Kanen Breen's rehearsal video diary Part One, Part Two, Part Three | Taryn Fiebig | ABC News | Hitler Misses Bliss | And the ABC2 broadcast is available in full on iView until the end of the month.

Social networking | The #donotmissBliss Twitter campaign continues | Lots of discussion happening at The Mad Scene | Not to mention Eighties Night! | And oh dear ... look who's inspired a Facebook fan group

Meta-Bliss

It's fair to say I will never be Peter McCallum. Peter McCallum, who not only wrestles the hugeness of the Bliss experience into 472 words, but does so quickly enough for the review to appear within 12 hours of the standing ovations it recounts. Speed and conciseness, funnily enough, were my claims to fame during high school and university. Nowadays, though, when I'm writing about opera, instead of thrusting a Marxist analysis upon poor Heathcliff (not my idea) or working Catherine Deneuve into yet another French writing assignment (that was my idea), everything seems to stretch out and complicate itself. 

The first person pronoun may never make an appearance, but my reviews are nevertheless very personal pieces of writing, and as such, much harder than academic discussion to extract from my temple and arrange on the virtual page. I always hope that while I sleep, elves will do the work for me, but this never happens. It is always a challenge. 

And the greater the experience, the greater the challenge, which is why reviewing Bliss this weekend proved somewhat harrowing. Normal sleep patterns were abandoned, copious Coke Zero was consumed, frustration at the futility of words in the face of music was expressed on several occasions, and the passive voice, as you see, was not always conquered. In the end, I got there. I inevitably do, but at the outset — as I stare at the screen, hoping to snatch from the air an introductory thought with paragraph potential — completion doesn't feel very inevitable at all.

Why I am I telling you all this? I'm telling you because, having just drained myself of description, praise and analysis for this strange and wonderful work with which I might just be falling in love, there's no way I can do it again so soon — and even if I were up to it, I don't think it's the best idea. I'm about to go on a journey with Bliss. I've booked for every performance. And since I've almost never attended a second — or tenth — performance of any opera without wishing to amend my initial review, it's reasonable to assume that Bliss, which is so new, so toweringly complex and which has so many directions in which to develop, will elicit a fair few words from me over the next three weeks.

So that's how I'm going to blog Bliss. Not as one big capital-R Review, trailing addenda, but as all the words — however long, and whatever their shape — this season sends spinning out of me. I hope you'll join me for the ride, both here in computerland and above all in the theatre. To quote  Amanda Holden's libretto, there is massive turbulence ahead. But it's gorgeous, thrilling turbulence, and I plan to revel in its every tremor. If I can't do that in 472 words, then so be it.

The beginning

It is easy to think of tonight's world première of Bliss as a sort of finishing line now crossed. For ten years the opera has been inching its way toward this very point, and now, at last, here it is. Mission accomplished. Except not. The gestation might be over with, but that's only one phase of existence anyway. Now this fascinating operatic baby has been born, and what we have is not an end, but a beginning. 

And as beginnings go, this was an auspicious one. Brett Dean's first opera is rich, complex, mesmerising, intriguing and downright beautiful. (Conventional and unconventional beauty shoulder to shoulder.) The creative forces assembled to bring it to life all live up to their formidable reputations. Artistry, bravery, imagination, affection and wit abound. 

Is it fully formed and perfectly polished yet? No. Is that a problem? Absolutely not. It's a privilege for us to see that formation happen before our eyes — to watch our newborn opera take its first steps and carve out its own very special life. Bliss as it was tonight was a strong and beautiful thing; the Bliss which will grow through this season, and another, and another,  and so on and so on, will be stronger and more beautiful still. I've booked for every Sydney performance, and I can't wait to see where this season goes, and where it takes me.

As for the specifics of tonight's performance, well, now is not the time. They'll come, thick, fast and florid, both here and in my published reviews. All I'll say right now, because it cannot go another minute unsaid, is that Peter Coleman-Wright has achieved — is achieving — something extraordinary as Harry Joy. He is the mad, virtuosic, yet disarmingly self-effacing centre of everything, and his voice and presence are just as luminous as his white suits. 

It's been tweeted so often that maybe it's lost its lustre, but after tonight, it holds truer than ever. Do not miss Bliss. 

Barry on Bliss

Baritone Barry Ryan sings the role of Alex Duval in Brett Dean's Bliss, which as we are all no doubt keenly aware, opens at the Sydney Opera House tomorrow night. He very kindly took the time to answer a few questions about his part in this unmissable (#donotmissBliss!) operatic event. 

Barry Ryan as Alex Duval in Bliss. (Photo: Branco Gaica)

How long ago did you become involved with Bliss? Were you a part of the workshopping process or did you come on board once the opera was fully formed?

I came on board about halfway though the process, after the initial workshop had been done but before it got fully underway.

 Everyone seems to agree that Brett Dean's music for Bliss is fairly challenging. How did you go about learning the role? Are there particular vocal challenges in Brett's writing for Alex? 

With any modern work there are challenges, mainly because nobody’s done the work before and there’s nothing for us to use as a point of reference. With traditional repertoire there are recordings, DVDs, etc from which you can select aspects of a performance and character that appeal, and work from there in developing your own approach. So this has been ground breaking in that way, working without a precedent.

The role is very vocally challenging, and incredibly high for a lyric baritone. However as I’ve sung tenor before, this helped. There are a lot of top A naturals in the duet with Peter Coleman-Wright, which you would not usually find in the repertoire for a lyric baritone. So this was one of the big challenges.

My preparation has been really just about practising hard, trying things out and finding what works and what doesn’t. For example, I’d play around with my vowel sounds to find out what needs to be in the phrase before the really high notes, to help me get there. So it’s really ‘trial and error’, but very exciting discovering new ways of doing things!

For those who might be unfamiliar with the novel, can you tell us a bit about the character of Alex Duval, and how he fits into Harry Joy's saga? 

Alex is one of Harry’s friends – well, as much of a ‘friend’ as Harry has, as I don’t think he really has real, close friends. He’s a colleague, someone with whom he has mutual respect. A lot of respect really, to the point where he undergoes a metamorphosis and thinks he is Harry. I see him as slightly sycophantic to Harry – he puts him on a pedestal but when Harry starts to undergo drastic changes of his own, Alex is shocked and thrown by these.

Alex is an unusual character and not the most immediately sympathetic. What is he like to play? Is that where Neil Armfield comes in? 

Neil’s effect on a production and a character is really unique. I’ve worked with him several times and he’s a fantastic director. He doesn’t force you to do your role in a way that’s not already in you – he can see the essence of the character in you and then he tries to draw out. With a minimum of fuss too – in fact you don’t know its happening but then you think "hang on a minute I didn’t realize I was going this way" but you realize Neil has drawn something out of you that you didn’t even realize was there. He helps you find the character within you, rather than form it.

This isn't your first time premiering a new Australian work. Is there a particular approach you take to preparing for a work like this, as opposed to an established repertory piece?

Having no point of reference, you’re really inventing everything for the first time – it’s exciting and pretty bloody scary! Because you’re also conscious that when people do it again, they will use your own performance as their point of reference – and they might think it’s awful! But that’s the major difference -  inventing new a character, a new vocal perspective for the character.

Bliss has been a long time in the making. Are there specific pressures that come with finally bringing such a long-awaited work to the stage? What has the atmosphere in rehearsals been like, particularly as opening night draws nearer?

Absolutely there are big pressures. There is a global expectation - not just an Australian one – for Bliss to be big and we’ve really all felt that. There’s already the Edinburgh Festival ahead, and then the Hamburg production, so it’s a  hell of a pressure on everyone, but especially Brett and Amanda. 

In a way, I feel we’re responsible for delivering Brett’s baby! I feel deeply I want to do my best for my own sense of achievement, of course, but I really want it to be a great success for HIM too. After the dress rehearsal he looked so elated, like he was thinking “wow this is going to work, and these guys can actually do this"! I saw the same look on his face after the initial vocal workshops, but once we put the books away we had to start again from scratch, and I’m sure at one point he must have wondered if it would really come together as well as he’d hoped. But after the final rehearsal, he knew we had it, and he had that happy look again!

A lot of new operas, in Australia and overseas, seem to disappear after they're premiered – it's hard for a new work to really take permanent hold in the repertoire. What are your hopes/predictions for the future of Bliss?

My hopes are of course that it will go on to be performed at The Met and Vienna etc. I don’t think it’s impossible, but with modern works you just never know. With Batavia there were rumours of it going global, and that hasn’t yet come to fruition, though it deserves to. But I think with Brett’s reputation in Europe, the possibilities are huge. I think it will be a great success here, and I hope for big things internationally, but as for predictions, we’ll have to wait and see.

 Barry Ryan & Peter Coleman-Wright (Harry Joy) in Bliss. (Photo: Branco Gaica) 

#donotmissBliss: The Downfall Parody

Once I'd had the idea, I couldn't shake it. So here it is. (And if you're not familiar with the [slightly passé] phenomenon of the Downfall parody, here's a bit of background.) 

The Rise and Rise of #donotmissBliss

I love social networking. A week ago, @ElissaMilne and I started up the #donotmissBliss tag, and the mania just keeps on spreading. We haven't trended yet but all things considered, I think our humble hashtag is doing pretty darn well for itself. 

So I was especially thrilled on Tuesday to discover that Opera Australia (in the form of @OAPR) had come on board with the campaign — not just by using the tag, but by actually running a competition encouraging others to do likewise. Have a look at the @OAPR profile and you'll see the details — there's a double pass to Bliss up for grabs every day for a week. 

I'm so glad that OA is finally making a proper splash on Twitter, and of course very happy to have contributed to that splash. Even if sometimes I think I should also be tagging my tweets with #stillnotonthepayroll. (I kid. Labour of love, goodness of my heart, etc etc.)

And meanwhile, Bliss and #donotmissBliss seem to be bringing out the artist in everyone. First there was Alex's poem, and now another friend of mine — known to you as the creator of John Wegner is awesome and of the Bliss Pie — has also been moved to burst into verse. Here's her #donotmissBliss limerick:

I'm not OA's new ticket flogger
But this serves as a memory jogger:
    I'll remind you of this --
    Please #donotmissBliss
(And so agrees prima-* the blogger.)

[*lamusica. But then it wouldn't scan.]

To which I can add nothing but my agreement. Do not miss Bliss.

Blissmania!

Bliss! It's a multimedia sensation! You know about Bliss, the novel and Bliss the film, and of course you know about Bliss, the opera. But do you know about...

...Bliss, the Twitter hashtag
It all started with @ElissaMilne, who thought my tweet about my opening night dress meant the opera had already opened. Panicking, she tagged her tweet with "#donotmissBliss". I said it deserved to be a trending topic, and a campaign was born. A number of us are now using this hashtag as frequently (and creatively!) as we can. We haven't got it trending yet but we're having a brilliant time trying, so if you're the tweeting type, please join in. Brainless memes and Justin Bieber (who?) are hard to displace, it's true, but how thrilling would it be if we actually made it happen? And even if we don't trend, I'm sure you'll agree that encouraging people not to miss Bliss is a massively worthy aim. 

...Bliss, the orchestral suite
I've linked to this before, but it bears repeating. You can listen online here to Brett Dean's Moments of Bliss, an orchestral suite drawn from the opera. At the Bliss symposium last Sunday, Brett said that while the suite doesn't necessarily appear in "great slabs", almost every bar of it has made it into the finished opera — so it's a nice way to whet your appetite.

...Bliss, the radio interview
Andrew Ford's very recent interview with Peter Coleman-Wright is a very engaging introduction to both the plot and the music of Bliss. It also includes a snippet of Moments, but perhaps even more interesting is the brief snippet included from Songs of Joy, in which we hear Harry Joy describing his vision of Heaven and Hell. Check out that falsetto!

...Bliss, the poem
Alex, proprietrix of The View From C Reserve, has written a marvellous poem in support of the above-mentioned Twitter campaign. With her permission, I reproduce it here: 

I don't have Twitter, but for crying out loud
#DONOTMISSBLISS!

If you miss Bliss,
You'll be seriously pissed,
And you'll boo and you'll hiss,
"What the hell is with this?"

Don't go get on the piss,
Get an earful of dis,
Go and BOOK NOW FOR BLISS:
Pete'll blow you a kiss.

It is not to be missed.
So, we'll see you at Bliss?

You can see why I've dubbed Alex The Mad Scene's Poet Laureate. (She's also just written a Peter CW inspired haiku which I absolutely love.)

...Bliss, the menu item
Maybe I shouldn't even admit to this one. A friend (and the creator of John Wegner is awesome, as it happens) came over on Friday night, bearing pie. The pie was compensation for the hideous movie we were then obliged to watch. But she asked me beforehand what picture I'd like onto the top of the pie, and naturally, since my mind has only one track, I said "Bliss!" Thus, The Bliss Pie. (Yes, it took me a moment too. But that's an elephant sitting on a car, with three honey bees hovering overhead.)

...Bliss, the costume party
I've already mentioned this, too, but let me encourage you yet again to dress up and come along to Bliss Eighties Night on March 25th. Come even if you don't want to dress up, it looks like being a very fun evening. 

...Bliss, the documentary
The ABC's Artscape will screen a documentary on March 16th entitled Making Opera Bliss, offering a behind-the-scenes process of this world premiere. Indeed, the documentary forms part of what they're calling a "Bliss-a-thon", allowing viewers to explore "the book, the film and finally the opera...on ABC1, ABC2 and the Arts Gateway".

...Bliss, the TV/cinema broadcast
Said Bliss-a-thon culminates in the live TV and cinema broadcast of Bliss on March 17th. If you can't be in the house (which is where I'll be!) then somewhere, somehow, there is a screen you can watch it on. And watch it you must. You don't need me to tell you that. 

...Bliss, the unmissable opera
This is what all the above, however loopy, comes down to — you have to go. Bliss is a significant happening in all kinds of ways. And besides, it's packed with such potential for wonderfulness — just look at the artistic forces involved! — that you'd have to be crazier than Harry at his craziest not to experience it for yourself. Once at least, and more if you can. Do not miss Bliss. And spread the word: #donotmissBliss.

Bliss & Madness

One of the reasons we started The Mad Scene in the first place was to encourage themed costume nights at the opera — it's the sort of lunacy which works better in groups. So, now that the group is going strong (159 members and counting — will you be #160?) we've announced the first such evening. It's A Night of Eighties Bliss, a chance to don your best shoulder pads and sequins in honour of Brett Dean's Bliss. 

In theory it's a Mad Scene event, but since I know not all of you are Facebookishly inclined, consider this your invitation. Thursday 25th March is the date for your diary. We're not organising a group booking or anything like that, but it's worth noting that there are a lot of seats left for that performance in all reserves of Rows A-D. That's where my co-admin Simon and I will be, as well as at least a few other Mad Sceners, and we'd love for as many people as possible to join us — the more the merrier. 

And if you are Facebookishly inclined, you'll find all the event details here. We'll organise pre-show and interval gatherings closer to the night, so keep an eye on that page for further information. We'd appreciate it if you RSVP, too; it doesn't oblige you to come, but it does at least give us a rough idea of who to expect. 

Intimations of bliss

Oh, opera, you're such a good influence on me. Generally speaking, my literary tastes don't extend much past 1960 — but with the world première of Brett Dean's Bliss edging ever closer and usual avenues of preparation unavailable, what else was a girl to do but to read the novel? 

Yes, if you're Australian, you probably don't need that incentive, because you've probably already read it, and/or have a definite opinion about Peter Carey. But I'm not Australian, and despite literally growing up in a bookshop, I'd never heard of Bliss until I heard about the opera. (I had heard of Peter Carey, though. I'm not a total philistine, honest.) I've also not seen the film, though I suppose I really must sometime between now and next March. Not that I necessarily think either book or film is absolutely vital to appreciating the opera — it ought to function as a work of art on its own terms, and I'm sure it will. In my case, though, I feel I'd like to replicate as far as I'm able the sort of popular consciousness of Bliss which so many Australians seem by definition to possess and which I, until recently did not.  

Would I ever have read Bliss otherwise? Perhaps one day, but quite possibly not. Am I pleased I've read it? You could say that. All I asked was to be prepared (fore-armed?) for the opera, and lo and behold, I found — let's not say bliss — true delight. I liked the humour, the complexity and sheer imagination of it. I liked Carey's ability to take you one way with a character, lull you into what seemed like understanding, then veer unexpectedly into pyschological territory you never saw coming. I liked those sudden switches from past to present to future, unheralded, and populated by pronouns not immediately explained, so that you're just lost enough to enjoy the tangle before it's pulled straight again. I liked the tree scene and the subsequent curse (now there's an aria straight from Verdi). I don't want to live in a commune, but I'm glad Harry did. I liked Harry, even though that first page description of his oversized moustache had me preparing to feel the opposite. And above all, I liked the style of Carey's prose. Novels live or die for me on the strength of their writing; the most riveting plot in the world can't hold me if the writing is unreadable. But I love the way Bliss is written; I find Carey's wry, rambling, chatty — then swiftly poetic — style incredibly engaging. 

What we can expect from Amanda Holden's libretto, I've no idea. What will be changed, removed, added, rearranged and rethought, only time will tell. (At least for those of us not privy to the years of development and workshopping this opera has gone through.) If it captures just a fraction of the lyricism and insanity and (I'm going to say it) sheer joy of the novel, though, then I'd say it's going to be at least a little bit special. Not to mention that all this bliss will be in the hands of Neil Armfield, with whom I suspect many of us are still smitten, post-Grimes.

With regards to the music, I'm even more in the dark. All I have is my imagination and Boosey & Hawkes, whose website holds a few tantalising hints. Like the entry for Dean's 2004 work Moments of Bliss, "a suite of four purely orchestral movements which will form the basis for several orchestral interludes throughout the opera". The composer's program notes on that page give a few intriguing, if fleeting, insights into the opera itself; then again, I'd imagine a lot can change in five years. The other highlight of this entry is the scoring of the suite, which is entertainment enough in itself:

4(IV=picc).3(III=corA).4(II=Ebcl,III=bcl,IV=dbcl).3(II=whirly tube,III=dbn)-4.3.3.1-timp.perc(4):I=vib/SD/sizzle cym/tgl/3gongs/7cowbells; II=lg tam-t/5tom-t/3bongos/5susp.cym(incl.1sizzle cym)/whip/marimba(shared with IV)/glass chimes/tamb/tuned gong/whirly tube; III=sm tam-t/xyl/glsp/SD/lion's roar/4t.bells/tuned gong; IV=BD/marimba/full drum kit/glsp/2tgl/1crot/tuned gong-2harp-elec.git-pft(=cel).MIDI kbd(using Ableton LIVE via Mac computer)-strings(16.14.12.10.8; pincipal 1st vln=elec.vln; 2vln/vla/vlc=whirly tube; 1 female 2nd vln="Wheel of Fortune"; all vlc/db require a medium soft timpani stick)

Lions and gongs and whirly tubes, oh my! 

Then there's the song cycle Songs of Joy, which was premiered last year by Peter Coleman-Wright with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. According to one of the linked articles:

In the first song, Harry's Vision, the protagonist describes his journey through Heaven and Hell. The energetic Ballad of Little Titch is a tall story which Harry tells on his first time out after his convalescence. The final Sonnet is a serenade to the new love in Harry's life, after he abandons job and home to settle in the rainforest.

Strange to think all those Liverpudlians have heard these songs and we still haven't. My anticipation grows. I also note that one of the articles says that Peter "will take the lead role of the adman Harry Joy on stage in Australia, Germany and the UK" — we already know it's slated for the Edinburgh Festival, but Germany too? This bodes well. Our opera seems to have legs; and Peter can become to Harry Joy what Gerald Finley has to J. Robert Oppenheimer. 

Finally, there is the entry for the opera itself. A few hints, although nothing especially revelatory. A couple of characters have had names slightly changed: Joel has become Johnny, Adrian has become Nigel. The small chorus of "Managing directors" sounds like something out of G&S, don't you think? The synopsis is pretty straightforward and — warning — contains spoilers. Knowing the cast, I couldn't help but read the novel with those singers in my mind's eye — even though doing so led to a few traumatic moments — and while some were a bit hard to square with their characters, others seemed immediately like perfect casting. Barry Otto notwithstanding, Peter Coleman-Wright just is Harry Joy for me now, before I've even heard or seen him in even a fragment of the role. I'll even accept the oversized moustache, if I must. 

122 days and counting until opening night. Perhaps I'll start a countdown clock in the sidebar. I really can't wait.