‘Opera is the most misunderstood of art forms. Many people enjoy excerpts they might have heard in movies and television programmes (and adverts) but continue to feel that a night at the opera is not for them. Wrong. When it works, opera is quite simply the most dazzling, emotional, visceral experience you will have in a theatre.’ – The Bluffer’s Guide To Your First Night At The Opera
Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t have to be a toff to enjoy the opera. Listening to people singing in foreign languages won’t make your ears bleed. And you don’t need an IQ approaching that of genius to appreciate this ‘most misunderstood of art forms’, which is more often than not centred on just three or four themes: man loves woman, woman loves man, people die (often by their own hand).
Yes, dear reader: opera is for YOU! Think any compelling series you’ve ever watched on Fox Crime, but with more elaborate costumes and a killer live soundtrack. Opera is about sex. And violence. And – somewhat shockingly, to the uninitiated – humour. There’s even a synopsis you can read before it begins (a bit like Wikipedia, but without the plot spoilers). To borrow from American humourist Robert Benchley: “Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of dying, he sings.”
It may be some time before Phnom Penh is in a position to host an opera in its entirety, which would involve a cast of hundreds, but good news: Gabi Faja, he of The Piano Shop and, separately, GTS Jazz, is hosting an aural appetiser of sorts along with very modern mezzo-soprano Ai Iwasaki, a professional opera singer since 2004. Having completed a postgraduate degree in Opera Musicology at her native Tokyo’s Shouwa University of Music in 2010, Ai moved to Italy and the Conservatorio A Boito in Parma under the tutelage of Master Lucetta Bicci.
Now living in Phnom Penh, Ai cautions that opera isn’t for the faint of heart. “As a teenager in Japan I had always liked to sing, but then I went to an opera performance and was staggered by the power and intensity of this amazing thing,” she says. “Opera isn’t just singing. It’s history, it’s psychology, it’s love. One of my favourite composers is [Claudio] Monteverdi. Monteverdi belongs to an Italian school from three to four hundred years ago, when opera was barely developed. The music is so simple because it was early days, so the singing becomes the most important. Also they had gods who were all having sex with each other and killing each other. It was really full of drama – even more so then because of the shock value at the time.”
And what of this aural appetiser? Says Gabi: “Because we can’t do a fully fledged opera, we take some of the most famous and the most beautiful arias and we do a melange, a collage of arias from different operas. It can be anything from Mozart to Puccini and beyond, so you get the best of the best in a nutshell. Opera can be done in a modern, popular way. You can do it in the streets; you can do Stomp and Puccini, there’s no stopping you!” [Bursts into a jazz rendition of Un Bel Di from Madame Butterfly]
WHO: Ai Iwasaki (mezzo-soprano), Gabi Faja (piano) and Bong Somnang (clarinet)
WHAT: An introductory night at the opera
WHERE: Doors, Street 84 & 47
WHEN: 8:45pm December 26
WHY: Opera is the most misunderstood of art forms