Articles by year:
2012 [1]
2011 [10]
2010 [11]
2009 [7]
2008 [5]
2007 [12]
2006 [6]
2005 [11]
2004 [1]
Articles by baby:
bushido baby [2]
bach baby [2]
bago baby [2]
boogle baby [1]
boo boo baby [1]
bunji baby [8]
buppy-sugar baby [8]
brianmay baby [2]
booby baby [1]
badly-drawn baby [1]
beef baby [8]
badminton baby [2]
bad baby [5]
banks.j baby [2]
billy baby [1]
bam baby [1]
bumble baby [1]
jelly baby [1]
bombshell baby [1]
I feel like Monkey tonight
By BUSHIDO BABY
01 August 2008
Monkey: The Opera
London premiere - Wednesday 23 July 2008, Royal Opera House
Libretto: Chen Shi-Zheng
Composer: Damon Albarn
Production & Design: Jamie Hewlett
I suppose it may have been inevitable that a man who once rhymed Balzac with Prozac would one day attempt to write an opera but, even at the height of their Britpop fame, I never imagined that I would one day see Damon Albarn receive a standing ovation at Covent Garden.
My attendance was certainly predestined; Modern Life is Rubbish was the second album I ever bought (pipped to the post only by the Simpsons album featuring Do the Bartman), and I have long been a great fan of the bizarre 1970s Japanese television show Monkey Magic, which is based on the same book.
Wu Cheng-en’s 16th century epic Journey to the West, one of the four great Chinese classical novels, recounts a legendary 9th century passage to India to bring back the Buddhist scriptures. The mission is led by the virtuous monk Tripitaka, who is accompanied by the lascivious glutton Pigsy, the rather bland Sandy and, of course, Monkey. The latter considers himself a ‘great sage, equal to heaven’, but his real talents lie firmly in the sphere of warfare, assisted by a shape-shifting staff and the ever-useful ability to fly.
Albarn’s music makes occasional use of Kraftwerk-esque electronica, but largely remains faithful to the legend’s Chinese origins. Many critics decried his previous Mali Music endeavours as dilettantish, and the same charge could certainly be levelled at this project; but in comparison to Oasis’ inability or unwillingness to evolve musically in the course of a decade, I consider it entirely admirable.
My previous experience of ‘Chinese’ opera is limited to a vague reminiscence of having watched Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine over a decade ago, but I recall the singing being decidely harsh and the acting extremely melodramatic. The music in Monkey is pleasant throughout, and the hero’s leitmotif is rather catchy but, less than a week later, I cannot remember a single tune.
The design is the real star of the show: the sets vary from an underwater kingdom to a fiery volcano, with a giant Buddhist fist making the occasional intrusion. All are beautifully depicted, and excellent use is made of video footage during the scene changes.
The costumes are similarly elaborate; singing starfishes fly across the stage, a troop of monkeys lament the transience of life, and a coven of scantily clad witches attempt to seduce the chaste Tripitaka. Okay, the witches’ costumes weren’t strictly-speaking elaborate, but I enjoyed them nonetheless.
Monkey also boasts a panoply of non-musical performers; sabre-wielding demons attack on unicycles, a human pyramid of plate spinners appears to metamorphose into a tree and contortionists performed wince-inducing displays of flexibility.
As a spectacle, Monkey is indeed a great success, an oriental Aida for the 21st century, but as opera it is rather less convincing. The use of amplification meant that all the sound came from giant speakers above the stage, rather than the cast or the rather limited orchestra in the pit. This robbed the production of the sense of immediacy and the connection with the performers that opera normally creates. The title role is apparently so physically demanding that two performers have to play Monkey in any one night, and I feel this demonstrates the triumph of the physical over the musical in the work as a whole. In future, if I want to listen to an opera set in China, I think I will stick with Turandot.