THURSDAY 26 | 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. 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, which means ‘Mount Green’. 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: A night at the opera (almost)
WHERE: Doors, Street 84 & 47
WHEN: 8:45pm December 26
WHY: Opera is the most misunderstood of art forms