It's weird that when you look up Raoul Wallenberg on google, the two-word summary is "Swedish architect." I mean...that's accurate as far as it goes, but when you look up John Wayne Gacy, it doesn't say "American clown." It should say "Swedish hero;" as you know or ought to know, during World War II he was an attaché to Nazi-occupied Hungary who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews by the expedient of loudly and fearlessly lying to Nazis--and for his troubles was imprisoned by the Soviets on suspicion of being a spy and almost certainly died a few years later in a Russian prison camp. The gruesome unfairness of the world can be a bit much to take.
Anyway, he's the subject of the piece currently under consideration. Obviously. You'd think it would be in German or Swedish, most likely, but no, this is my second Estonian opera. As you might expect, it's not plot-focused, taking a fragmentary, postmodernist view of its subject's life. The music is perfectly pleasant, very, how do I say? shimmery and sometimes boisterous.
It's really good, actually, with some very arresting moments. The main antagonist here is Adolf Eichmann, as sung by Priit Volmer looking like a sinister (well, more sinister) Billy Idol; there's nothing banal about this depiction, and him haranguing Wallenberg with three glitzy nightclub singers as backup is...something, I'll tell you that. However, only the first half deals with Wallenberg's actual exploits in the war; the second spends a perhaps excessive amount of time with him as a prisoner, and then everything collapses into postmodern chaos. Wallenberg's singer is replaced by an Elvis impersonator (seriously), and then there's an ecstatic rave featuring, among others, Santa Claus, an astronaut, and several giant Matryoshka dolls. Granted, the chorus, with everyone just chanting "Wall-en-berg," is pretty great, but you do have to wonder...come on. What are we doing here? It's not that it's disrespectful to the man or his legacy, but, visually striking as it is, you sometimes wonder...why is this? For what reason? This review calls it "a stinging satire" but never specifies what they think is being satirized, probably because they don't have any better idea than I do. Just figure it's GOTTA be satirizing SOMETHING.
Still, there's a lot to be said for it. One of these things that I put off watching a long time because I was vaguely skeptical of it, and then that skepticism turned out to be more or less unwarranted.
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