H.O.T. combo captures dark side of life, love
“Pagliacci” was composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo in 1892 and stars Kip Wilborn as the ill-fated actor Canio, who murders his wife. (Courtesy Cory Lum)
BY STEVEN MARK / smark@staradvertiser.com
Few works in the classical music repertoire have worked their way into the popular consciousness as the opera “Pagliacci” and the choral work “Carmina Burana” have.
“Pagliacci,” with its theme of jealousy and violence smoldering behind a sad clown’s visage, has surfaced in countless pop images, in Smokey Robinson’s Motown hit “Tears of a Clown” and as “Crazy” Joe Davola from television’s “Seinfeld.”
‘PAGLIACCI’
‘CARMINA BURANA’
Presented by Hawaii Opera Theatre featuring BodyVox
» Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall, 777 Ward Ave.
» When: 8 p.m. Friday, 4 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Tuesday
» Cost: $29 to $120
» Info: ticketmaster.com
“Carmina Burana,” Carl Orff’s powerful choral setting of medieval poetry, has been used in dozens of film and television scores, from major features to kitschy commercials. Its haunting overture has migrated into the sports context, with teams using it to create the specter of intimidation, and even politics, with comedians using it in reference to former vice president Dick Cheney.
Aside from their popularity, both works have something else in common: an underlying theme of the circle of life — and we’re not talking about the uplifting, sunny mood of the recently departed “Lion King.” Instead, they both have a darker side, which is the intention behind “Pagliacci” / “Carmina Burana,” a combined opera/dance production of the iconic works.
Hawaii Opera Theatre this week gives three performances of the production, which was created by the Portland Opera and features choreography by BodyVox, a Portland dance company.
“THEY’RE BOTH about love and death,” said guest stage director Roy Rallo, who was part of the show’s premiere run in 1997. “There’s a whole section of ‘Carmina Burana’ that’s about love, and there’s a whole section which is about our tortured, twisted fate and the way that, just as you think you’re on the upswing, the wheel of life leads you down under into a very dark place and then you come full circle. This circle is a theme you also see in ‘Pagliacci.’”
“Pagliacci,” composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo in 1892, tells the story of the ill-fated actor Canio, who is a “pagliaccio” (clown) in the play-within-a-play scheme of the opera. His suspicion of his young wife, Nedda, (Elizabeth Caballero) turns to a murderous jealousy, his anguish expressed most famously in the tortured aria “Vesti la giubba” (“Put on the costume”).
Starring as Canio will be internationally renowned tenor Kip Wilborn, who first performed in Hawaii in 2007 and has since moved here. He is eager to be performing the iconic role for the first time in his career but is well aware of its challenges.
“I’m doing my best to make sure that we remain aware of the humanity of the character,” Wilborn said. “Oftentimes he just rants and raves around stage, and he’s not a human being. But this is a man who desperately wants to make the marriage work. … It’s like any of us. We all have those moments where we get pushed to that point where reason doesn’t prevail, even if it’s just where we make that one really bad comment to someone.”
Singing “Vesti la giubba,” in which Canio puts on his makeup while lamenting his wife’s wanton ways, will be a test of Wilborn’s range, power and emotional control.
“You have to stay, vocally, just a little bit back from the edge, otherwise it could just eat your lunch,” Wilborn said. “The orchestra is playing so loud, and you’re singing so loud over it, so if you’re going there emotionally, it’s really easy to go away from singing well technically.”
The choreography for “Carmina Burana” is by Portland dance company BodyVox. (Courtesy Cory Lum)
ORFF’S “Carmina Burana” is derived from a collection of 250-plus texts and poems by student monks and clergy from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, written to satirize and mock the Catholic Church.
Orff chose 24 of the texts, which ranged in subject matter from the vicissitudes of fate and the blooms of spring to lust and drinking, and set them to music of various moods and colors. First performed in 1937, it became his masterpiece.
AS A major stage production, “Pagliacci”/”Carmina Burana” came together almost by accident. Portland Opera General Director Christopher Mattaliano, seeking something to pair with the relatively short “Pagliacci,” asked choreographers Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland to compose something based on “Carmina,” thinking they would use a couple of songs to create a brief finale to the evening.
“We thought there would be a little movement, and they would incorporate the singers in a certain way,” Rallo said.
Hampton and Roland had other ideas. Through their discussions with Mattaliano, they came to understand the text of “Carmina” to be an expression of the cycle of life. But they avoided reading the lyrics before creating their choreography.
“What we tried to do was listen to the music and listen to the quality of the voices, and find a language that we felt interpreted that at a more subtle level. Once you make that decision, you really start to meet the music on its own terms,” Hampton said. “After we choreographed it, we went and read the translations, and it was pretty astonishing how close it was to what we were doing.
“The idea was to begin with something very human, very calculable, and then reflect those very same themes, which are love, jealousy, fate, life, death, but reflected now through ‘Carmina’ in a much more abstract (way),” Hampton said. “And therefore it’s almost more personal for the audience.”
Their choreography is based roughly on the story of the Garden of Eden, with Roland performing as a kind of embodiment of the Nedda character from “Pagliacci.”
“Nedda has walked this line of temptation,” Roland said. “She walked it in ‘Pagliacci,’ and she continues to walk it in ‘Carmina.’ We play that out in a metaphorical way.”
Carl Orff’s powerful “Carmina Burana” will be performed with “Pagliacci.” (Courtesy Cory Lum)
The result was “a huge choreography, just huge,” as Rallo recalled. “Every single number, completely choreographed. … That wasn’t what we were thinking.”
Happily, things worked out. The production was expanded to include most of the choreography, and “Pagliacci”/”Carmina Burana” has become Portland Opera’s signature production.
Hawaii Opera Theatre will be re-creating the work, down to its simple, bare set — designed that way because the Portland company couldn’t finance an opulent backdrop, Rallo said.
Rallo, now on staff with the San Francisco Opera, has staged “Pagliacci”/”Carmina Burana” with several other opera companies and thinks Hawaii’s cast is one of the best.
The production itself is quite accessible, he said, even to those who know nothing of opera.
“Quite often in opera, I would say, ‘Don’t go to this, because if you don’t know opera, this will turn you off forever and you’ll never go back,’” he said. “But this, I could pretty much say, ‘If you don’t know anything about opera, you will enjoy this quite easily.’ … It packs a wallop. It’s hard to avoid it.”