I feel good about this week's #OperaHarmony batch, for two reasons: first, because this one actually consists of six pieces, including the one about football with the long comedy name from last week; and second, because the average level of quality here is startlingly higher than either of the previous weeks. I would've voted for any or almost any of these above any of the ones I actually voted for as winners in the first two weeks. Go figure.
Katie Jenkins, A Fish out of Water
This one consists of abstract images (many of them in sets of four boxes, suggesting separation) with ethereal, ambient music complete with ghostly voices wordlessly singing over it. Meanwhile, we have a series of people (like, really people)--an astronaut, a deep-sea diver, an experienced Buddhist (do you need "experience" to be a good Buddhist?), the vice captain of a rounders team, and a left-wing activist--who reflect (speaking, not singing, obviously) on aloneness and togetherness, as their respective fields involve one, the other, or both of these. I like the music a lot. I'm not sure whether the concept coheres into much, but it's a perfectly fine way to spend ten minutes.
James Schouten, Threshold
This opens with an electric guitar riff, and it quickly becomes clear that it's a rock opera. And I have to say, it rocks pretty darned hard. It's about a young man and woman, upstairs and downstairs neighbors in an apartment block. She's one of those plugged-in millennials always on her phone; he sits alone in his computer mucking about online and contemplating his suspended medical studies. And then they meet, sort of, though it's really more about the potential than the real. But it's kind of great, and when I said it rocks, I wasn't kidding--I was put strongly in mind of Queen, and you can easily imagine Freddy Mercury belting out the male role. This is...well, it's my favorite of all of these so far. I could watch it over and over, and I might just do that.
Heathcliff Blair, Behind the Lines
This one is about World War I, and a couple communicating through letters. Oh, and also, there's this sickness that people are getting...I think you can see the relevance of this. In the end, one or both of them may or may not be about to die of influenza. We just don't know, though to be optimistic, the odds are better than even of both of them surviving. Black-and-white images of both of them writing. It's pretty straightforward, but THAT IS FINE. I like the music, and I think it's well-written. Another winner.
Daisy Boulton, Edge of Time
This one is based on a book by a journalist investigating his young mother's suicide. Well, I say "based," but it's six minutes and fairly abstract (in a good way!), so probably "inspired by" would be more accurate. I feel that this is the sort of abstraction I'd like to see in these things; it really works well, and it has this really lushly-produced country sound that recalls perhaps Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams. Great stuff; I mean that.
Dimitri Scarlato, A Life Reset
This is about a woman living alone during the pandemic, messing around online and contemplating stuff. It reminds me more than any of the others of the less-memorable things pieces from the first two weeks; while I wouldn't exactly call it bad, I have to admit, it's not that interesting either. A little bit, dare I say it, boring. Definitely my least favorite this week. I have little to say about it.
Hugh Morris, Harold & Keith Attempt To Use Zoom To Discuss The Potential Takeover of Beloved Football Club Newcastle United – An Opera
Yes, okay, giant comedy name. Well, I suppose if you've read the title, there's probably not much else I have to tell you about the story itself. These two friends are chatting back and forth about the subject on facebook until the daughter of one of them suggests, hey, why don't you just take it to Zoom and stop annoying all the bystanders? So they do. I've gotta be honest: I don't really understand the sports politics very well. Also, once they get on Zoom, it's sort of confusing: both Harold and Keith are trouser roles, but sometimes for no apparent reason they switch from female to male singing voices. Still, it's fun: especially when they're Zooming and singing at each other in rhyming couplets, with lots of profanity--in the first half, you wonder about the content warning at the beginning, but in the second, it becomes clear. The music is the weirdly folk-inflected stuff which I liked a lot. This one may be inessential, but I'm definitely glad that it didn't just disappear into the void.
Here are the rankings, but these are a little arbitrary: aside from the first- and last-ranked pieces, the others could fairly appear in any order, and indeed I would say I either loved or liked a lot all of them except the sixth-ranked.
1. Threshold
2. Edge of Time
3. Behind the Lines
4. Harold & Keith
5. A Fish out of Water
6. A Life Reset
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