This was an interesting operatic experience. I call it that, because the work wasn’t an opera, in the traditional sense. It was very much a piece of performative live art, Marina Abramovic’s milieu. I would recommend opera loves and lovers of Maria Callas to experience the work, but not to expect an operatic journey in the traditional sense. On it’s surface it seems straightforward, and rather simple - a series of arias from roles made famous by Maria Callas, sung by a series of excellent female singers, with a physical personification of Maria, played by Abramovic, lying in a bed for the entirety of their performances. Then the scene transitions to a sequence with an entirely new orchestra work by Marko Nikodijevic (who I posted in a previous blog post) where we see a mundane and sad image of Maria Callas'’ life at the end of her existence, in isolation and seclusion from the outside world. The story of the end of her life, the way she battled with the end of her singing career and the treatment of her by Onassis is devastatingly sad. It would be worth reading a bit about this before you experience the show.
Like many of Abramovic’s work it’s easy to say “I could do that” or “that seems easy,” or “it doesn’t make sense” or “why would you bother to do that!?” That’s the reason why I like her work. Like Robert Wilson, who I adore, you need to let the work absorb into you, take a journey with it and really think about the world and life you live and how this art can effect and inform you. Simple actions and moments presented to you comment on larger social forces. Simple symbols and ideas have huge philosophical concepts behind them, and it takes time, for me any way, to really absorb the ideas and the work. It’s not going sink into you after a few minuets of experiencing the work.
The extravagance of having a full opera company, orchestra and other resources at their disposal in this project, like film, boogie costumes from Burberry etc does tinge this work with a very decadent, entitled position. In our Rare Opera Club chat this came up a lot - perhaps a younger artist would do something more innovative? Perhaps the two half’s of the work could be more integrated? Perhaps this, perhaps that. It’s so easy to judge big established artists and say they have sold out, or lost touch and that they should always be creating masterpieces and finished worked of genius. I’ve been reading a lot of the work of Philip Ewell who touches on the idea that genius and masterpiece are not only gendered terms, and so we need to step with caution when using them and try and rethink this expression, but also that these words and the language systems they embrace comes from a long tradition of privilege, misogamy and racism. So with this in mind, my initial reaction to the piece, which was about the integration of the different aspects of the work seemed to fade. Abramovic is not interested in this, its time and immaterially of the performance that is key and so we need to allow a ourselves to go on a journey with the piece and to embrace the abstraction of the experience. If I was ever provided such a large canvas that she has for this work, I would absolutely embrace it. Wouldn’t you? The extravagance of telling a small and simple aspect of Maria Callas’ life through such a huge canvas might seem over the top and decadent, but Callas was decadent, volatile and a consummate artist dedicated to a higher expression and representation of herself.
Artists, great or small need to be given big and risky canvases, and they should be allowed the opportunity to take risks and to fail. What I find so wonderful about this work is it might not “succeed” (again, what does that word mean to us now, and how does is play into old stereotypes of art and hyraces at play in art?) in the traditional sense, but it is allowing visionary artists to create opera. An artist this isn’t know to create opera. Opera needs this most of all. It is so stuffy and backward, we need more and unorthodox visions from artists who haven’t been engaged with opera in the past, and we should do the upmost to see this vision be achieved, even if it fails.
“...I do things that I am afraid of…failure is important because if you experiment you fail. If you don’t go into that area you repeat yourself over and over”
If you are to engage with this work, I think you need to know a little about the sad life Maria Callas led after her career ended. I think you also need to have an idea of the misogamy that has existed in opera and how women characters are allowed only certain pathways through opera - death, lust, love or devotion to god or a man.
Who can make opera and why do they create opera?
For another piece by Marko Nikodijevic I’ve been getting into Gesualdo dub / room with erased figure (recording above).