Wired Science: At 10:34 PM on a recent evening, passengers at Los Angeles’ Union Station scurried down well-worn linoleum hallways toward departing trains, running to catch the evocatively-named Coast Starlight (Seattle), Pacific Surfliner (San Luis Obispo), or Sunset Limited (New Orleans). Among the crowds was a man carrying a backpack, sauntering between the rows of chairs and singing to himself. The scene was far from unusual given the station’s diverse and colorful clientele, but there was something different about this singer – people were actually paying attention. An entourage of spectators, all wearing matching black headphones, traced the man’s path, hanging on every word.
4 comments:
I guess it is only natural for Opera too to try on a different style of performing. I think it sounds pretty awesome! I think that being able to walk around and view everything from different angles is really interesting and I could see it being more appealing to a modern audience. I love that 'outside' people can also stumble upon the opera and get a glimpse or a listen to what is going on. It really serves to remove a boundary. The location also creates so many possibilities and problem solving opportunities. I think some really creative things can come out of this. It's like what makes Opera in the Park so fun -- it takes opera out of it's native setting and into something new and different. This takes it to a whole new level and it seems super exciting if quite complicated!
I haven't even thought about opera jumping on the bandwagon of experiential, roaming theatre that has been praised (at least in the case of Sleep No More) in the theatre world for the last few years, but this sounds really interesting. It's even more challenging because the environment they are performing in isn't controllable. They might have intruding frequencies and there are non-audience members walking through the space (and probably annoyed that there's a crowd they have to get through to make their train). This is a great way to expose more people to opera and new ways of thinking about the "traditional" performing arts.
I love the idea of forcing opera out of its traditional gold-and-velour clad environment and performed not only in a very different venue, but also in a completely different way. I'd love to go to "Invisible Cities" and see for myself how much this performance diverges from traditional opera, and what it does or doesn't bring to the spectator in comparison to what it might be like in an opera house.
Having been to LA's Union Station, I can imagine what a strange experience this would be for an audience, and what a challenge it must be for the actors, directors and technicians. Site-specific theater is often very difficult on the technical side, and so is opera, and working the two together must be insane.
This is pretty cool. It almost reminds me of a personalized flashmob, or those silent clubs in Europe. There seems to recently be a rise in the amount of nonstandard theatre, particularly the sort of story which resembles a choose-your-own-adventure story. I think this would do a good job of making opera seem less intimidating, and of making it a more engrossing event.
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