Philip Glass, The Perfect American (2013)

It's an opera about Walt Disney, which is certainly an intersection of several of my interests. But...[sotto vote]I think that title might be...ironic.[/sotto voce]  We shall see what we shall see.

It takes place on and around Disney's sixty-fifth birthday, while he was in the process of dying of lung cancer. As expected, it's a non-linear presentation without any plot to speak of, alternating between flashback and present-day in surreal fashion. Other characters include Walt's brother Roy; his wife Lillian; and Wilhelm Dantine, an artist who was fired from the company, apparently for trying to unionize the animators. Also, Andy Warhol, because why not, if you're talking about the ways cultural icons like Disney are mythologized.

It's very musically interesting. Having watched my second Glass opera, I'm totally baffled by criticisms that his music is somehow boring. I mean, no, he's not Puccini, if that's your only frame of reference, but crikey, he's obviously not trying to be, and he's very interesting in his own right. Although, granted, his style probably doesn't serve this particular story quite as well as it does Akhnaten. Whatever; it's all good.

But the first question you would probably have is: what about the character of Disney itself? How is that treated? And I have to say...it's a little bit complicated. Right, so obviously he had his faults, and obviously the opera will dwell on them. I don't know quite how to evaluate the exact truth value of everything here, but it's certainly the case that he was anti-union, and I imagine he was culturally conservative, and generally right-wing. That's all easy to believe. It's NOT true, as far as I can discern, that he was personally racist (and yes, I am well aware of plenty of instances of racism in Disney product, probably more than you are, so don't start); the scene in which this is revealed consists of him having a dialogue with a malfunctioning animatronic Abraham Lincoln from the Hall of Presidents, which is kind of a brilliant idea, but the substance as far as I can tell is pure slander. So, you know, some of it seems reasonable, some kind of iffy, but I know that it's as much about myths we tell about ourselves as it is the man himself, so I'm not, like, super-outraged about it or anything. What it's hard not to take exception with on occasion is the tone, which is as subtle as a woodpecker dropping a giant camera on your head, and frequently rather on the hectoring side. The libretto is not all it could be.

However, what's maybe surprising is that the opera isn't actually completely unsympathetic to Disney. His nostalgic desire for a never-was past is clearly myopic, but also sort of poignant, and it's clear that he really does care about his work and his creations. Furthermore, his relationship with his family is presented in positive terms, as is the bonding he does with a boy in the next hospital room over. It's actually kind of moving, more so than it might be because of truly excellent work by Christopher Purves (whom I recently saw as the lead in Saul); he doesn't look anything like Disney, but he really does a bravura acting job, laying bare not only the character's prejudices, but his vulnerabilities and his ideals. The production as a whole is very good, too, mostly centering around the hospital bed and bringing in props and background images as needed. You might wonder how an opera like this would work from a legal standpoint, but the director threads that needle quite well: it's okay to name Disney characters (and beyond the obvious ones, here we have an opera where Scrooge, Gyro, and the Beagle Boys are mentioned by name, which can't help but tickle me pink), but as far as images...well, I'm pretty sure that using them would, or should, qualify as fair use, but when you're a massive megalithic corporation, it doesn't really matter what the law may technically be; you can still destroy any weaker entity who defies you. So there are some non-specific animations of animals, and pictures of a large ball with two smaller balls on top which is obviously suggestive but in a non-actionable way. It works fine.

Honestly, I wasn't necessarily expecting to be enamored of this ("the opera received mixed to negative reviews," wikipedia ominously tells us), but in spite of the somewhat clumsy libretto (based on a book which may or may not be similarly clumsy), I ended up liking it more than not. This production (the only production?) is freely available on youtube, which feels like it ought to be pretty blatantly illegal, but I dunno--EuroArts seems like an aboveboard outfit, so maybe there are licensing agreements. Well worth a look in any case. They should screen this at Disney theme parks.