Lincoln Center Festival, New York State Theater; July 16, 2006
“If I murdered Hrothgar and all of the Scyldings, what would I live for? I’d have to move,” says the hero/villain monster Grendel in Julie Taymor’s and J.D. McClatchey’s libretto for Elliot Goldenthal’s new opera. Adapted from John Gardner’s 1971 novel, which retells the myth of the Swedish hero Beowulf from the monster’s viewpoint, Grendel is, yes, a monster who has terrorized, mangled and eaten the Danes for years, but one who has an existential sense of irony, an ability to appreciate beauty and love, and a heart and a soul but he is stuck being a monster; he tells us that he’s “in the twelfth year of this idiotic war.” Goldenthal’s opera just ended a four-performance run at the Lincoln Center Festival after being premiered in Los Angeles last month. It’s a spectacular show – there are almost two dozen singers plus chorus, large orchestra and many dancers; Ms Taymor’s huge puppets and tree-figures, seemingly out of Tolkien, come and go. As an operatic experience, there’s a lot going on and not all of it is convincing. It’s almost impossible to avoid enjoying it, but precisely how much the music will stay in the mind is open to debate.
The set has received great publicity: George Tsypin has created a 40,000 pound wall, 28 feet high and 48 feet wide that moves slowly to reveal a glacier-like ice-shelf on one side and a muddy expanse on the other; in its middle is a platform stage that folds down to create another playing area. Everything looks different from our world, which is apt; in this ancient world Grendel and his monster family are half dirt; the land everyone inhabits is either recently thawed or recently frozen – it’s a tough life. Strobe lights are used in a battle scene; thirty-foot high puppets appear in dreams.
Mr Goldenthal’s music varies with each scene, as is fitting for a man primarily known for his film scores: “Frida” (for which he won an Oscar), “In Dreams,” “Titus.” When the scene calls for brutality he can let loose with a rash of impressive percussion; the entrance of the lovely, in love, Queen Wealtheow, contrarily, is beautifully lyrical. Grendel, who is on stage and singing for most of the opera, has defining monologues, but it is their content rather than the music that sets the words, that one recalls. One is reminded of Orff, Stravinsky and a minimalist or two, but for the most part, the score is so multi-layered that it’s all forest and few trees. This isn’t a bad thing for an opera, but it does not allow for a specific musical profile, a “tinta,” as Verdi would put it. The opera is sung in English and in Old English, the latter adding a nice flavor. Grendel himself occasionally goes for true slang, referring to one scene as “shit-ass.” It’s more witty and wise than offensive. The vocal lines are truly operatic.
The cast is superb. At the opera’s center is bass Eric Owens as Grendel, and if this doesn’t make his career – he has sung Sarastro, Fiesco, Colline, Sparafucile and other roles with companies around the world, but he is not “famous” – it will be a great miscarriage of justice. His big, expressive, handsome sound is worthy and his delivery of the endless music and text tireless and always interesting. Mezzo Denyce Graves delivers a lengthy cameo as a cynical dragon Grendel goes to for advice: she appears, dressed in red and green, reclining on a huge, scary puppet-dragon’s tongue, its nostrils snorting smoke. She looks gorgeous and sings at the very bottom of her range for most of the scene – a baritone woman-dragon, as it were. He advice is good – “Seek out gold – but not my gold – and sit on it.” Her tail is many feet long; at its end are three women – Dragonettes – who sing along. (Grendel, too has three super-egos.) The scene is as funny as it’s supposed to be.
Tenor Richard Croft is ravishing as the Shaper, a blind, Bardic singer at Hrothgar’s court who makes Grendel hear beauty; Laura Claycomb’s scene as the Queen exhibits her puity of line and simple loveliness. A stupid, muscle-bound hero named Unferth, come to battle Grendel, is reminiscent of Siegfried; tenor Jay Hunter Harris impresses in the role: Grendel seems bored with him and mocks him. The important role of Beowulf, who arrives to slay the ready-to-be-slayed Grendel is given to a dancer – the superb Desmond Richarson, all buff and tattooed – while a chorus sing-speaks the important information at the sides of the stage. It’s somewhat of an anti-climax, and one wonders at the decision. Angelin Preljocaj’s choreography is filled with stock movements, but it works. Constance Hoffman’s costumes are in keeping with the Taymor-Tsypin phantasmagoria. Donald Holder’s lighting plays a big part in the work’s effectiveness.
Conductor Steven Sloane allows the scenes to happen seamlessly, with great care for both the opera’s grander and more sparsely scored moments. The score requires energy to keep it aloft, to keep the ensemble together and to keep its colors distinct, and Sloane offers it all. Whether or not “Grendel” will have legs is a question; the audience loved it.
Robert Levine
