Chaya Czernowin, Infinite Now (2017)

Here's one of those pretentious "is this really an opera?" operas, like Einstein on the Beach or Stockhausen's Licht cycle. I'm not necessarily using "pretentious" as a pejorative here, but this is definitely nothing like anyone's classical definition of "opera."

There's no story, really; no characters. It's about war; that's about all you can say. That sense of everything happening at once that you get from the title. It's based--supposedly--on a mixture of a play based on All Quiet on the Western Front and a story by Can Xue (an author I really ought to read) about a woman who comes to a house on a hill and finds it hard to leave. Well, I say "based on." Probably "loosely inspired by" more than anything. Honestly, I can't detect any kind of plot having to do with the former, and while the latter IS clearly present, it's kind of inchoate and doesn't ultimately amount to much. A lot of the text is letters from World War I soldiers.  The libretto is more or less an even mix of French, German, and English.

It is, well, it is. It is. As you would expect, the music is...avant-garde. Sometimes barely there. Does this work? Sort of, sometimes. There's one part where the dominant "instrument" is just the howling wind, into which various background instruments sometimes intrude. It's actually kind of effective, once you get into it. There's a staggering sense of being overwhelmed. And sometimes there are parts that may remind you, thematically at any rate, of the famous crescendo in "A Day in the Life." I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that this thing doesn't have merit.

But (you knew there would be a but; let's face it: I like big buts and I cannot lie) overall, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that overall I loved or even particularly liked this piece. The narrative seemed just SO non-existent, which wouldn't necessarily be a criticism, but I feel that it's trying to be something, and not quite getting there. If you do like this, I feel you will probably also like Stockhausen: that's what I was most reminded of. Hurray for Operavision for bringing us weird shit like this, but I'm glad that I didn't pay for it.