For such a sizable production, there isn’t a whole lot going on in “To Be Sung” — the latest chamber opera to fill the Conrad Prebys Music Center in song. All that sits onstage — awaiting the cast before the opening notes — are a couple of big, white origami … things. They really don’t look like much. For that reason, though, nothing could better exemplify the performance to come.
There is no discernable plot in “To Be Sung,” nor are there any particularly strong characters to identify with. Take away the music, and you’re once again alone with those glowing white lanterns. But don’t run away just yet — theirs may be an obvious foray into abstract, head-scratching territory, but a world of meaningless insight can be gained from the grad-student opera.
Composed by French luminary Pascal Dusapin in 1993, the production has since been re-imagined more than 50 times throughout Europe. Now that director (and original cast member) Susan Nurucki is teaming up with the Kallisti Ensemble — an experimental group of chamber-opera grad students at UCSD — “To Be Sung” is finally seeing its West Coast premiere.
The opera begins with a solitary figure (UCSD Professor Philip Larson) at the center of the stage, a purple spotlight bringing him out of complete darkness. In his best Tom Waits growl, Larson describes a vase, a lamp and an arm chair. He then leaves the stage to sit with the orchestra and provide nonsensical commentary that refuses to indulge our grasps at a storyline.
Meanwhile, a group of four women (Stephanie Aston, Tiffany Du Mouchelle, Leslie Ann Leytham and Meghann Welsh) congregate around the stage, and — like their omniscient narrator — let out a stream of jumbled, indiscernible abstractions.
“Two walking!” shouts godlike orator Larson sporadically throughout the show. The girls are even less relateable in their high (and perfect) pitch: “A cuckoo bird!”
If it’s any consolation, the gibberish does make more sense when the source material is revealed. The opera is adapted from the libretto of American modernist Gertrude Stein’s “A Lyrical Opera Made By Two.” Stein isn’t exactly known for her comprehensive plots; the writer notably translated Cubist painters like Picasso into literary form, creating striking word portraits made to evoke feelings rather than follow literal storylines.
Dusapin’s opera follows suit.
The set’s notable cubism and cast’s nonsensical turns of phrase are meant to represent the relationships and desires of the four women.
“Sometimes the women are demanding to be kissed; sometimes they are showing off,; sometimes they are just lost,” Nurucki explained.
With each action and emotion the women try to represent, the music and lighting change as well. Their words don’t tell us much at all, but a veritable mix of emotions still shines through.
“You can’t understand the words, but you can understand the feelings,” Nurucki said.
The music is as frenzied as the expressions, moving from somber, wilting notes to jazzy bass over screeching oboe and menacing trombone. The female voices layer themselves — one over another — into a chaotic pulse, drawing out singular words and morphing them into distorted harmonies. Combined with colorful, shifting lights, the room becomes a schizophrenic trip.
Those white lanterns don’t seem so out of place anymore.
“To Be Sung” clearly isn’t for everyone. For the minority of audience members with the patience and arty enthusiasm to sit through 70 minutes of challenging nonsense, the kaleidoscope of light and sound will be an inspiration; the rest will find themselves in over their heads.
