Review: Victory Over the Sun
PETROGRAD - Do limits exist in opera -- stories too fanciful, concepts too abstract, ideas too radical to be told in song? Perhaps not, according to Victory Over the Sun which was performed last night in Luna Park with libretto by Aleksei Kruchenykh, music by Mikhail Matyushin and stage design by Kazimir Malevich.
True to the revolutionary fervor rumbling beneath our city streets, the opera signified a passionate call for a new order. An irregular score, experimental language and bold visuals rejected the limits of rationality and authoritative tradition in an explosive work declaring that the time for change is now. Yet with the rebellious mark of the unconventional staining every medium encompassed in Victory Over the Sun, it felt as though art had been corrupted by politics.
True to the revolutionary fervor rumbling beneath our city streets, the opera signified a passionate call for a new order. An irregular score, experimental language and bold visuals rejected the limits of rationality and authoritative tradition in an explosive work declaring that the time for change is now. Yet with the rebellious mark of the unconventional staining every medium encompassed in Victory Over the Sun, it felt as though art had been corrupted by politics.
"All is well that begins well and has no end."
Amid a convoluted plotline peppered with bizarre characters, the opera's central theme ultimately states that the sun (symbolic of logic and reality) is no longer infallible; even the science of cosmology can be altered by humans who one day will become capable of physically capturing the almighty star. Such conclusion is daring yet also valid in these times of political uncertainty. However, what could have been a fresh perspective to inspire thoughtful dialogue was blurred by audacious music, lyric and design colliding into chaos.
Matyushin's composition alone stood as a powerful ode to imagination, exploration and discovery. In addition to his musical endeavors, the composer also studied and taught physiology of the human senses. In an essay titled "An Artist's Experience of the New Space", Matyushin teaches his students to see with both eyes, each independently, in order to widen their overall field of vision. This idea can perhaps be seen to have guided Matyushin's expanded application of his music across multiple artistic disciplines, for the score that was already a singular statement of artistic defiance only served as a steppingstone for the lyric and design to build an operatic whirlwind fit for revolution.
Kruchenykh wrote the libretto in Zaum, a linguistic experiment in sound symbolism and language creation seeking to divest words of their conventional meanings. Zaum is characterized by indeterminacy in meaning because words without definitive translation allow for fuller expression free from the binds of everyday speech. To its writers, Zaum provides for a satisfying poetic language rooted in the organic, rather than the artificial or forced -- yet its audience was only left in a discouraged state of confusion. Similarly, Malevich's set design and costuming dismissed objective imitation in favor of the "supremacy of pure feeling".
Matyushin's composition alone stood as a powerful ode to imagination, exploration and discovery. In addition to his musical endeavors, the composer also studied and taught physiology of the human senses. In an essay titled "An Artist's Experience of the New Space", Matyushin teaches his students to see with both eyes, each independently, in order to widen their overall field of vision. This idea can perhaps be seen to have guided Matyushin's expanded application of his music across multiple artistic disciplines, for the score that was already a singular statement of artistic defiance only served as a steppingstone for the lyric and design to build an operatic whirlwind fit for revolution.
Kruchenykh wrote the libretto in Zaum, a linguistic experiment in sound symbolism and language creation seeking to divest words of their conventional meanings. Zaum is characterized by indeterminacy in meaning because words without definitive translation allow for fuller expression free from the binds of everyday speech. To its writers, Zaum provides for a satisfying poetic language rooted in the organic, rather than the artificial or forced -- yet its audience was only left in a discouraged state of confusion. Similarly, Malevich's set design and costuming dismissed objective imitation in favor of the "supremacy of pure feeling".
"To the Suprematist, the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth."
-Kazimir Malevich
Malevich's "Black Square" (left) pioneered the nonobjective art that inspired his costume designs (right) for Victory Over the Sun
Geometrically abstract costumes and sets, fragmented and nonlinear libretto, unorthodox rhythms -- all are significant and correspond to revolution in their own right. The opera was effective in its intentions to highlight the parallels between literary text, musical score and the art of design. Yet when mixed together in full futuristic force as they were in Victory Over the Sun, the result was futile (Malevich's cubed costumes, though intriguing, were not acoustically compatible) and overwhelming. Just as they had for the Ballets Russes' performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, the audience reacted negatively and even violently to Victory Over the Sun. It appears that the political culture of revolution has overrun art's traditional purpose of providing a haven free from the strains of everyday life, or in this case, free from the hostilities of power. The destructive venom of revolution had already settled deep within the veins of Russia poisoning her safety, her stability, her hope and now, too, her art. We mustn't let these new artists selfishly claim our last source of culture, of humanity -- Russia must not be defined by revolution.