Denis & Katya by Philip Venables and Ted Huffman with Ksenia Ravvina, directed by Huffman. Opera Philadelphia, through September 29, 2019, at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, Philadelphia.
This world premiere has provoked opposite reactions, and the controversy adds to our interest in the event.
Some viewers say it’s the future of opera. Others say it shouldn’t be called an opera at all.
Experimental, and short in length, Denis & Katya actually is just what I want in a festival. It complements other works that are longer and which have contrasting styles. It uses an unusual group of performers to produce an intense emotional experience.
It is unproductive to predict that this is the future of opera. Certainly it’s different than the norm. So were Pelleas et Melisande and Wozzeck, but neither initiated a movement of similar works. Denis & Katya is unique, and is worth embracing for that singularity.
Denis & Katya is based on a real-life incident from 2016. Two Russian 15-year-olds ran away from home, occupied a cabin owned by her father, and live-streamed the tragedy that followed. Because her father was a member of Russia’s Special Forces, there was a supply of weapons. And there was alcohol. And their cellphones. Romeo and Juliet holding guns, you might say.
The children uploaded pictures of themselves to Instagram and live-streamed themselves on Periscope. They posted a farewell message about being misunderstood by adults. Then they died.
The actuality of these teenagers, however, induces some antipathy. To many of us, they seem like indulgent drunken punks rather than romantic figures. Cleverly, the creators of the opera chose to not show them on stage. The two singing performers don’t play the kids. Rather, they play the multiple roles of journalist, teacher, nurse and friends of the couple, talking and singing about what transpired.
This, then, is a documentary — an investigation into what caused the face-off and what attracted so much worldwide attention. Composer Philip Venables and librettist/director Ted Huffman delve into voyeurism, and the fact that the teenagers wanted themselves to be seen. They needed attention. And that attention might have influenced how the story ended.
The two singers are accompanied by only four cellists who sit in the four corners of the mostly-bare stage. Think of how Villa-Lobos scored his Bachianas Brasileiras. In an especially beautiful part near the end, one of the cellists strums her instrument like a guitar while the others accompany.
Baritone Theo Hoffman and mezzo-soprano Siena Licht Miller sing and act superbly. One impressive detail is the fact that Hoffman and Licht resemble the doomed couple, even though they specifically are not playing those characters.
There’s no conductor and no prompter. All six musicians depend on a click track in their ears which provides the timing and gives pitch cues, similar to the way conductors record the soundtracks of movies in synchronization with the film. Except this is live, in the moment.
We see the creators asking themselves how to tell the story. Their typed messages appear in print on an on-stage screen. Shall we show the actual video here? they ask each other. Or save it for the end? Or not use it at all? We start the day expecting to see how the teenagers died and, instead, become engrossed in what the performers are going to show us, and how they’re going to show us.
The performers appear to interact with the audience, voicing the questions that we are thinking in the moment. The narrative is fragmentary, which might bother some viewers but which illustrates the fact that the story is based on many differing reactions to the events.
Actual messages from Periscope viewers scroll across the stage, such as “Katya, show us your tits.” This opera is an exploration of today’s voyeuristic society and its crassness. Obviously, any audio recording of the opera would be incomplete. One has to experience the un-voiced text that’s being projected, and to hear the perspective of music coming from four corners of a stage. This demonstrates the power of live, in-person music.
Venables’s haunting music is elliptical, eccentrically shifting as the story unfolds in bits and pieces. It varies from dissonant to elegiac, with subtlety rather than harshness. The cellists are Rose Bart, Jean Kim, Jennie Lorenzo, and Brandon Yeast, playing exceptionally well under the musical direction of Emily Senturia.
The starkly dramatic scenic and video design are by Andrew Lieberman and Pierre Martin.
Originally published in The Opera Critic, the international website for professional musicians.