Monkey: Journey to the West
Opera in One Act
Saturday 26th July 2008
Royal Opera House, London
Composer Damon Albarn
Libretto Chen Shi-Zheng (after Wu Cheng-en)
Conductor Andre de Ridder
Here is another example of an adventurous rock musician getting into dangerous territories. Damon Albarn of Blur, Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad & The Queen has teamed up with his Gorillaz partner Jamie Hewlett and acclaimed director Chen Shi-Zheng to create a full-scale opera based on the classic Chinese folktale of The Journey to the West.
Before getting accused of being snobbish or whatnot, let's get this straight first. This is not an opera, and it has little "academic" value. Even though it is advertised as an opera and is staged at the Royal Opera House, one should not look at this along the same line as a modern opera such as those by Peter Eotvos, Harrison Birtwistle or Thomas Ades. What it is, in a nutshell, is a choreographed acrobat display with music and occasional singing. It is more of a visual event than a music event. The bottom line is, it is more like a show for lighthearted entertainment than a serious production for the academics drilling into the libretto (or more appropriately here, the lyrics).
I must admit, I was a bit skeptical about the whole idea before going in, and I remained largely unconvinced by the end of it. Not that I had any doubt on Albarn particularly, but to condense so much literature and other artistic details into two hours of meaningful context is a rather difficult task. Frankly, I only went to see it because it is Damon Albarn, being a Blur fan myself at some stage, but this time it was quite disappointing. It’s a bit of a wishful thinking to expect songs (arias and duets) along the lines of Song 2 and Coffee & TV in an opera production (though if I remember correctly Lorin Maazel had a barber shop quartet in 1984) but all we got are minimalistic background music which have little musical content. Most of the time it consists of a chord repeating numerous time (a bit of a surprise that even Philip Glass has more variations) with a tune on top or an absolute abuse of the pentatonic scale. Given the intrinsic intonation of Mandarin, most of the sung passages aren’t very adventurous either. Thomas Bloch provided some interesting sound effects with his wondrous collection of rare instruments ranging from the ondes Martenot and glass harmonica, so that was a plus, but in any case, Albarn going on stage with a guitar singing along would have been a lot more interesting.
The production was in Mandarin, with English subtitles, so much was lost in translation. If one listens closely to the Mandarin, one could easily find the text vulgar, juvenile, and honestly just poor. Let’s not get too involved in the religious implications just yet, but when was the last time you hear a supposedly righteous and pure monk calling someone “a filthy pig”? Choosing a somewhat playful female monk didn’t help, but if it is artistic license, I will give them that. Scene 3, "Heavenly Peach Banquet", was particularly painful to watch, when girls dance in the Japanese kawaii fashion. None of the plot was substantially developed, and I do wonder how the audience would understand what was going on.
There were some incredible bits though. Jamie Hewlett, the designer for the visual rock band Gorillaz, made some excellent cartoon presentations for the unstagable scenes such as diving into the sea and flying across the sky at great speed - in Gorillaz style of course. Quirky and humourous, it provided an edge for the performance. The production was also filled with acrobat displays, a bit like Cirque du Soleil, and loads of staged fighting. These substantial visual elements made it more like a staged event than an actual opera in the conventional sense.
It is a difficult one. Personally, I am expecting more from a production of this scale, but a quick post-performance eavesdropping session indicated that the audiences were wildly amazed by the acrobat display. It did it for them, obviously, so I might just be asking for too much.
This entry is adopted from an earlier blog of mine, which no longer exists.
