by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

“It’s a complete artform,” says David Moss, general director of the Opéra de Montréal. “You get the visual element, which is just spectacular, you get the unique value of the human voice being the centre, you get the big orchestra—it’s full multimedia.”

In an era when digital discs are devaluating at laser-light speed, and conversely, the live show has never been stronger economically, opera—arguably the ultimate in live—should be making a tremendous comeback. But consider the exorbitant production costs, the volume of competition for culture-vulture coin and the public’s “kill de wabbit, kill de wabbit” preconceptions, and you can see how the once-mighty artform risks sliding into obsolescence.

“There are a lot of perceived elements that are fearful to people,” admits Moss. “It’s for the rich, it’s complicated, it’s sung in a different language—it’s not spoon-fed entertainment.” Fortunately, he and his colleagues are making canny moves to attract a wider—and for longevity’s sake, younger—audience. Last June’s outdoor Carmen Under the Stars event brought 10,000 to the Place des Arts esplanade, while the company’s school matinees and special subscriptions for the 18–30 set have outdone expectations.

Trad standards like Carmen and Aïda are still reliable revenue generators, but it would be neither fair nor wise for the company to stick to them exclusively. Their current effort, Frenchman Emmanuel Chabrier’s unusual and overlooked L’Étoile from 1877, betrays the right balance of edgy and accessible, touching on the sublime, the horrific and above all the ridiculous. The fun, fantastical misadventures of King Ouf, Princess Laoula and the lowly Lazuli play counterpoint to themes of torture and murder at the hands of a leader beyond accountability (oddly au courant, non?).

“It’s right out of this comic-book, surrealistic sentiment,” notes Moss, “that meets Broadway glitz. A part of the imagery also strikes me as being out of a Stanley Kubrick movie, almost A Clockwork Orange. Not the setting itself, which is very glitzy—the tone of the piece is very lighthearted, while the story is quite serious.”

Under Moss’s expansionist (survivalist?) mandate, however, the company has taken a far more daring tack with their nicely-priced technOpera offshoot events at SAT. Young singers from the Atelier lyrique, OdeM’s workshop for aspiring opera talents, are partnered with SAT’s DJs and VJs. “Project teams were thrown together with a level of musical guidance,” explains Moss, “to create a presentation together, inspired by the work on stage that was coming up.”

Musically, the technOperas are best described as remixes, extricating lyrical and melodic snatches and reconfiguring them in a modern, beat-driven manner. The visual side, however, disconnects from the parent production as the VJs assemble found images and home-brewed animation that digs deeper at the core idea in play—in the case of L’Étoile, torture and abuse of power. Acknowledged by Moss and his colleagues as adventures and experiments, the technOperas are nonetheless necessary baby steps in formulating a leaner, keener, more flexible strain of opera, suited to the age it finds itself in now.

And to this writer’s knowledge, no “wabbits” have yet been harmed in the process.

L’Étoile is at Place des Arts on Nov. 12, 14 and 17, 8 p.m., $42+, and technOpera: L’Étoile is at SAT tonight,
Thursday, Nov. 10, 7 p.m., $5

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