The Canadian Opera Company is continuing its campaign to reach a younger demographic this year by offering discount tickets for people under 30. The big question, though, is whether a university student can find anything remotely entertaining in a night at the opera.
Well, I’m here as one of the converted. I was wary of attending the opera, especially one, like Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, that’s a daunting three and a half hours long, but it was more enjoyable than I anticipated.
While I was one of the few in the audience who didn’t have grey hair and didn’t appear to be making over a hundred grand a year, the action on stage didn’t intimidate me any further.
I also expected to be in a state of utter confusion throughout the performance, since the libretto is in Russian, but the COC often provides surtitles (like subtitles, but above the action on stage instead of below) in English. This was helpful in following the action and it was high enough above the stage that it wasn’t distracting either.
The Queen of Spades itself is a creative and visually stunning piece. The most amazing part of this opera was its set design. That aspect of stage performance may seem secondary to some, but in The Queen of Spades it is central.
When the curtain rises the only item on stage is a huge mural-slash-portrait of a young woman’s face. The painting is almost hypnotic, as is the music that accompanies it, but before you are completely drawn into a trance a screen descends over the painting to reveal the same woman in old age and as the music helps to indicate in its crescendo, the transition is almost horrifying.
The first act is a story we’ve seen a million times before: boy sees an unattainable girl, she notices him noticing her but feigns indifference, he mopes about and complains to his friends.
The one thing worth talking about in the act is the room the lovers finally meet in. It is the girl Lisa’s bedroom and its perspective has been skewed in a way reminiscent of the hallway in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that gets physically smaller as you walk down it. It’s a real visual trip and makes the story more interesting.
The set-design and the story get more absurd and fantastical with each passing scene. The story is seen through the eyes of the lover Herman, and when he begins to lose his mind the audience is taken along for the ride.
There is an ingenious scene using puppets as expressive as any of the performers, and another where the audience is made to believe they are looking down from the ceiling of Herman’s bedroom while he dreams.
The Queen of Spades is both whimsical and enchanting and dark and ominous, and has made an opera believer of me.
