Sunday, November 8, 2009

MOZART REQUIEM -Review

I remember the anticipation and excitement: one of my favourite sacred scores by Mozart which I had an infatuation with since my early teens, was being staged by Cape Town Opera. To be precise, the company's website stated "... prize-winning director Fred Abrahamse is responsible for the dramatic staging of the Requiem".

It is rare (but not unusual) for sacred oratorios or cantatas to be imaginatively staged by directors. Francois Girard and the Canadian Opera Company creatively reworked the meaning of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms (http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm3-2/SM3-2TO.htm) as a memorial to victims of the AIDS epidemic. So much could have been done with Mozart's Requiem but Cape Town Opera missed the boat on this one. The exercise was an unmitigated disaster and scaled new heights in the brazen art that is mediocrity.

The costumes were just awful -the soloists (bedecked in masquerade masks) seemed like stragglers from the Venice carnival, wondering aimlessly insearch of some allusive halfbaked metaphore the director never quite got round to formulating. The lighting best suited a high school ABBA revue (...hmm, the Day of Judgement at Studio 54. Classy.) . Most offensive of all was the score at the hands of conductor Chris Dowdeswell -his musically nebulous reading of such great music, trudging through some of the finest bars of music to flow from the genius that is Mozart was akin to being feted on cardboard. The chorus was amplified -very very badly, the staging left the poor trombones in the orchestra musically over-exposed.

I walked away sad and disappointed. This production could have said so much in the hands of a more imaginative and commited director. Given the recent history of South Africa, our young fragile democracy and the various challenges we face (Aids, crime, gross economic inequality, xenophobia, etc) there is ample in our day-to-day lives that this project could have used. It would have been a more meaningful and powerful exercise in the hands of a competent creative team.

RATING (1 to 5 stars): Zero

DETAILS:
Cape Town Opera presents Mozart's Requiem
Filipa van Eck (Soprano), Janelle Visagie (Mezzo Soprano), Lionel Mkhwanazi (Tenor) and Rouel Beukes (Bass). Fred Abrahamse (Director). Chris Dowdeswell (Conductor). Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and Cape Town Opera Chorus.
October 28 & 31, 2009 Artscape Opera House, Cape Town.