At the Houston Grand Opera, two spring shows wrestle with love, faith and fate
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The soprano commands the stage in a performance as haunting as it is stunning. Photo: Lynn Lane, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.
Both of the spring shows at the Houston Grand Opera lean into the season's "truly, madly, deeply" theme — with heavy doses of religion — but they are distinctly different in story, tone and experience.
State of the opera: "Breaking the Waves" is a contemporary opera that premiered in 2016, composed by Missy Mazzoli. It's sung in English and is unsettling and strange, but you will get hooked with the plot line.
- "Breaking the Waves" is about a devout young woman in a conservative religious community who believes sacrificing herself — emotionally and sexually — is the only way to save her paralyzed husband.
The intrigue: "Breaking the Waves" was supposed to make its HGO debut in the 2020-2021 season, but it was delayed by the pandemic.
- The piece is sexually explicit in a way you don't expect on the opera stage — it has profanity, nudity and graphic scenes.
- Mazzoli wasn't sure she'd ever compose the piece. When her librettist suggested adapting Lars von Trier's 1996 film, she was hesitant — but she said "the idea wouldn't leave me alone."
What they're saying: Mazzoli is part of a small group of composers bringing opera into the 21st century. She tells Axios, "I love being part of the operatic tradition … I'm not out here to destroy the tradition and burn it all down and build it again."
- "I see this film and this story as the story of a woman in an impossible situation where everyone is telling her what to do, and she's left only with her own agency and her own idea of what is moral and what is good," Mazzoli says.
My experience: "Breaking the Waves" was a haunting, twisted story. I still don't know exactly how I feel about the plot, but I know the production and its ethical questions will stay with me.
- The opera is no doubt a talker for its hard-to-shake themes. I was also struck by the multipurpose set design and the dramatic, nautical-influenced score.
Meanwhile, Richard Wagner's "Tannhäuser" is a traditional opera. It follows a knight torn between sacred love and earthly desire, wrestling with redemption and damnation.
- It's big. It's slow. It's full of Wagner's famous dramatic and soaring music. The production is grand, with beautiful, ornate set design.
- Wagner's music in "Tannhäuser" is as rich and sweeping as always but he continues to test my attention span with a four-hour opera.
- As beautiful as his productions are, I'm starting to realize the stories just might not be for me — at least now. That said, I'm probably in the minority, as plenty of people around me were excitedly analyzing the symbolism.
If you go: "Breaking the Waves" runs through May 4, and "Tannhäuser" is on through May 11.
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