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A Night. at the Opera: Nabucco
a review by Shane Walker

You will have to forgive me if I
am not too fluent (if at all) with the
operatic language or its
terminologies; both my insight into
and my knowledge of the world of
opera are, at best, superficial. This
is primarily because I haven’t had
much exposure to this particular
cultural world; in total, I have seen
five operas, three of which were stu-
dent productions (subject to budg-
etary/financial restrictions). The two
major productions that I have seen -
Don Giovanni and Nabucco - were
both at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre,
both within the last eight to ten
months; so, as I have said, my expo-
sure has been somewhat limited. So
far, I have enjoyed what I have seen,
and as a result, will hopefully con-
tinue to increase my exposure to and
knowledge of this particular world.

But, on to my review. I went to see
Nabucco on Saturday, October 22.
It was a somewhat miserable night
(it had been raining all evening),
and, socially speaking, an almost
none-existent night (my friend’s car
had decided it was the perfect night
to have a collapse; how very dramatic
of it!). Fortunately, we got to the
theatre on time (with about five min-
utes to spare); however, the excite-
ment was not quite over as yet. A
few minutes after we sat down, some-

one wanted to know if we were in the
right seats, because her tickets were
for those two very seats (which they
were). Apparently there was a mix
up: we had been given tickets for
the upcoming production, The
Pearl Fishers: right seats, wrong
production. I was beginning to won-
der if I would actually get to see the
show, and if I did, was it worth the
inconveniences. As it turned out, I
did see it (we were given other seats),
and it was worth the (minor) incon-
veniences.

On to the actual review. A brief syn-
opsis (directly from the VO’s season
handbook): Nabucco
(Nebuchadnezzar), the almighty
Babylonian King, is drunk with
power. His delusions of grandeur
propel him to make war on Jerusa-
lem. The fate of his Hebrew prison-
ers hangs in the balance until the
demented ruler finds faith and san-
«9 ity. The Hebrew people triumph over
adversity with the courage of their
\\) convictions.

)
4 Nabucco, by Giuseppe Verdi, is an
® opera in four acts, with the last three

acts each containing two scenes. In

terms of time, it lasted approximately —

three hours, but this included two
intermissions and two (or three)
pauses, which, in reality, would put
it at about two and a quarter to two
and a half hours. Overall, I thought
that it was a good production, which
would I would have been willing to
call excellent were it not for the in-
consistencies of the first and final
scenes. The former I found to be
seriously hampered by an over-
whelming sense of clutter (and dis-
organization); it was quite unable to
capture my undivided attention, and
so I found my mind wandering to
other distractions. The latter was,
in a word, anti-climactic; more spe-
cifically, Scene 2 of the final act was
very anti-climactic. It failed to sus-
tain the energy and tension which
had been remarkably built-up dur-

ing Acts II, III, and IV (Scene 1). Even

the shattering of the idol of the god
Baal, intended to be dramatic and
awe-inspiring, did not help the flat-
ness of this scene; I don’t know if

anything could have!

In spite of these two inconsistencies,
however, I did, as I have said before,
enjoy this opera, primarily due to the
consistently strong performances
given by soprano Linda-Roark-
Strummer, who played Abigaille (a
slave believed to be the elder daugh-
ter of Nabucco), and baritone Donnie
Ray Albert, who played Nabucco;
and, secondarily, because of the sim-
plicity, beauty, and evocative power
present within the design of the sets
(which were on loan from L‘Opera
de Montréal). It was, like most op-
eras, of a grand theme, and consist-
ent with a grand theme, on a grand
scale. It was excellent when all it’s
elements were synchronized, and,
unfortunately, it failed when they
were not, but, overall, it was an op-
era and production well worth see-
ing.

Interview with Cris Kirkwood by
Terry Dawes

Cris Kirkwood is a Meat Puppet.
He and his brother Kurt and their
friend Derrick Bostrom have been
releasing records under this band’s
name since 1981. They are a rock
band from Arizona.

POTA: Do you think that the loen-
gevity of the Meat Puppets has a lot
to do with your music? Do you think
it’s important to be around a long
time?

CK: Yeah, | think that definitely the
amount of time you’r? together has some-

thing to do with the kind of music that you
make. You know, it just happens to hap-
pen. Circumstantially, you start to know
each other and develop a band sound or
whatever. When you first get together,
there’s a nice spontaneity there or some-
thing. Over a while, it’s just like any rela-
tionship. Anything you do for a long time,
if you do things together as a group, that’s
how things develop. But I don’t think it’s -
important, necessarily, if you don’t wanna
be. We just have no reason to have broken
up at any point because basically, the Meat
Puppets satisfies our needs on some levels.
On other levels it doesn’t, you know, you
can see the negative aspects of being to-
gether for a long time unless you’re like re-
ally successful and we never were. We were
never unsuccessful compared to a lot of
bands and I can’t really complain about my
lot that much but it wasn’t like I was mak-
ing millions of dollars for years and years
like some bands that’ve been together for a
while that’ve been rich all that time. I don’t
think it’s been satisfying us on that level,
you know, financially but musically it’s been
fairly fun.

Do you see an end to the Meat
Puppets or does that just have to
happen organically?

No, I don’t see any end to it. I mean,
one of our biggest influences, in a way, was
the Grateful Dead who, by the time we got
together, had already been together quite a
long time and they’ve gone on to be together
a long time and [| think their influence on
us was just that, look, you can be a rock band
and have all these cool rock affectations like
coloured lights and psychedelia and what-
not, you know, long hair or electric guitars
or whatever and goofy ass noises and shit
and still have it be more than just a two year
run as a pop thing because there’s that side
of rock and roll as well. And I think the
Dead showed us that that wasn’t the only
thing to do.

And the fact that it didn’t have
a lot to do with marketing.

Yeah, and all that stuff. They were just
strictly out of fucking confusion.

Yeah, or convenience.

And just out of wisdom on one level.
Why be anything else? I think it’s just down
to, like you said, convenience. What do you
want out of it? And I think the kind of peo-
ple we were, I never gave a crap about rock
and roll growing up. I always thought it was
kind of dorky but I wasn’t exposed to the
side of it that was arty. You know, I just saw
the pop side of it like Kiss, Boston and stuff
that people just drooled over that I just
thought was obvious marketing crap. I
wasn’t against it, I just didn’t care. I got
into playing music at thirteen. Music as I

‘thing from my head. You know, after I saw

‘Deliverance’ I got into bluegrass and banjo.
So I was coming at it from a completely dif-
ferent place where music had become this
thing to me which was like mental food.

So it’s not like you were listen-
ing to punk rock for ten years and
then decided to form a band. Z

No, not at all. Derrick (Bostrom, the
drummer) exposed us to punk rock. I’d gone
to see some punk shows and liked certain
punk things but I wasn’t steeped in the punk
thing, like the ‘Do-it-Yourself’, I didn’t get
that side of it. I’d seen Devo and the
Ramones and a few other things that just
totally rocked shitlessly and I thought were
really, really good. You know, but the whole
punk thing, to me, was just more rock and
roll, more Bowie imitation. It was so British
at one point, when it first happened, in ’77
SWeeai

A Night at the Opera: Nabucco
a review by Shane Walker

You will have to forgive me if I
am not too fluent (if at all) with the
operatic language or __ its
terminologies; both my insight into
and my knowledge of the world of
opera are, at best, superficial. This
is primarily because I haven’t had
much exposure to this particular
cultural world; in total, I have seen
five operas, three of which were stu-
dent productions (subject to budg-
etary/financial restrictions). The two
major prodiictions that I have seen -
Don Giovanni and Nabucco - were
both at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre,
both within the last eight to ten
months; so, as I have said, my expo-
sure has been somewhat limited. So
far, | have enjoyed what I have seen,
and as a result, will hopefully con-
tinue to increase my exposure to and
knowledge of this particular world.

But, on to my review. I went to see
Nabucco on Saturday, October 22.
It was a somewhat miserable night
(it had been raining all evening),
and, socially speaking, an almost
none-existent night (my friend’s car
had decided it was the perfect night
to have a collapse; how very dramatic
of it!). Fortunately, we got to the
theatre on time (with about five min-
utes to spare); however, the excite-
ment was not quite over as yet. A
few minutes after we sat down, some-
one wanted to know if we were in the
right seats, because her tickets were
for those two very seats (which they
were). Apparently there was a mix
up: we had been given tickets for
the upcoming production, The
Pearl Fishers: right seats, wrong
production. I was beginning to won-
der if I would actually get to see the
show, and if I did, was it worth the
inconveniences. As it turned out, I
did see it (we were given other seats),
and it was worth the (minor) incon-
veniences.

On to the actual review. A brief syn-
opsis (directly from the VO’s season
handbook): Nabucco
(Nebuchadnezzar), the almighty
Babylonian King, is drunk with
power. His delusions of grandeur
propel him to make war on Jerusa-
lem. The fate of his Hebrew prison-
ers hangs in the balance until the
demented ruler finds faith and san-
@ ity. The Hebrew people triumph over
adversity with the courage of their
ll convictions.

6
4 Nabucco, by Giuseppe Verdi, is an
© opera in four acts, with the last three

acts each containing two scenes. In
terms of time, it lasted approximately
three hours, but this included two
intermissions and two (or three)
pauses, which, in reality, would put
it at about two and a quarter to two
and a half hours. Overall, I thought
that it was a good production, which
would I would have been willing to
call excellent were it not for the in-
consistencies of the first and final
scenes. The former I found to be
seriously hampered by an over-
whelming sense of clutter (and dis-
organization); it was quite unable to
capture my undivided attention, and
so I found my mind wandering to
other distractions. The latter was,
in a word, anti-climactic; more spe-
cifically, Scene 2 of the final act was
very anti-climactic. It failed to sus-
tain the energy and tension which
had been remarkably built-up dur-
ing Acts II, Ill, and IV (Scene 1). Even
the shattering of the idol of the god
Baal, intended to be dramatic and
awe-inspiring, did not help the flat-
ness of this scene; I don’t know if
anything could have!

In spite of these two inconsistencies,
however, I did, as I have said before,
enjoy this opera, primarily due to the
consistently strong performances
given by soprano Linda-Roark-
Strummer, who played Abigaille (a
slave believed to be the elder daugh-
ter of Nabucco), and baritone Donnie
Ray Albert, who played Nabucco;
and, secondarily, because of the sim-
plicity, beauty, and evocative power
present within the design of the sets
(which were on loan from L‘Opera
de Montréal). It was, like most op-
eras, of a grand theme, and consist-
ent with a grand theme, on a grand
scale. It was excellent when all it’s
elements were synchronized, and,
unfortunately, it failed when they
were not, but, overall, it was an op-
era and production well worth see-
ing.

Terry Dawes

Cris Kirkwood is a Meat Puppet.
He and his brother Kurt and their
friend Derrick Bostrom have been
releasing records under this band’s
name since 1981. They are a rock
band from Arizona.

POTA: Do you think that the lon-
gevity of the Meat Puppets has a lot
to do with your music? Do you think
it’s important to be around a long
time?

CK: Yeah, I think that definitely the
amount of time you'r together has some-

thing to do with the kind of music that you
make. You know, it just happens to hap-
pen. Circumstantially, you start to know
each other and develop a band sound or
whatever. When you first get together,
there’s a nice spontaneity there or some-
thing. Over a while, it’s just like any rela-
tionship. Anything you do for a long time,
if you do things together as a group, that’s
how things develop. But I don’t think it’s
important, necessarily, if you don’t wanna
be. We just have no reason to have broken
up at any point because basically, the Meat
Puppets satisfies our needs on some levels.
On other levels it doesn’t, you know, you
can see the negative aspects of being to-
gether for a long time unless you're like re~
ally successful and we never were. We were
never unsuccessful compared to a lot of
bands and I can’t really complain about my
Jot that much but it wasn’t like | was mak-
ing millions of dollars for years and years
like some bands that’ve been together for a
while that’ve been rich all that time. I don’t
think it’s been satisfying us on that level,
‘you know, financially but musically it’s been
fairly fun.

Do you see an end to the Meat
Puppets or does that just have to
happen organically?

No, I don't see any end to it. I mean,
one of our biggest influences, in a way, was
the Grateful Dead who, by the time we got
together, had already been together quite a
long time and they've gone on to be together
a long time and I think their influence on
‘us was just that, look, you can be a rock band
and have all these cool rock affectations like
coloured lights and psychedelia and what-
not, you know, long hair or electric guitars
or whatever and goofy ass noises and shit
and still have it be more than just a two year
run as a pop thing because there's that side
of rock and roll as well. And I think the
Dead showed us that that wasn’t the only
thing to do.

And the fact that it didn’t have
a lot to do with marketing.

Yeah, and all that stuff. They were just
strictly out of fucking confusion.

Yeah, or convenience.

And just out of wisdom on one level.
Why be anything else? I think it’s just down
to, like you said, convenience, What do you
want out of it? And I think the kind of peo-
ple we were, I never gave a crap about rock
and roll growing up. [always thought it was
kind of dorky but I wasn’t exposed to the
side of it that was arty. You know, I just saw
the pop side of it like Kiss, Boston and stuff
that people just drooled over that I just
thought was obvious marketing crap. I
wasn’t against it, I just didn’t care. I got
into playing music at thirteen. Music as 1
thing from my head. You know, after I saw
‘Deliverance’ I got into bluegrass and banjo.
So Iwas coming at it from a completely dif-
ferent place where music had become this
thing to me which was like mental food.

So it’s not like you were listen-
ing to punk rock for ten years and
then decided to form a band.

No, not at all. Derrick (Bostrom, the
drummer) exposed us to punk rock. I'd gone
to see some punk shows and liked certain
punk things but [wasn’t steeped in the punk
thing, like the ‘Do-it-Yourself’, I didn’t get
that side of it. I'd seen Devo and the
Ramones and a few other things that just
totally rocked shitlessly and I thought were
really, really good. You know, but the whole
punk thing, to me, was just more rock and
roll, more Bowie imitation. It was so British
at one point, when it first happened, in '77