lost highway ( opera )
the maverick director' s disturbing' lost highway' has been transformed into an opera. ivan hewett reports
but that' s not how it seems to olga neuwirth, whose musical version of lost highway has its british premiere in a joint english national opera / young vic production next month .
quirijn de lang (pete dayton) and valerie maccarthy (renne / alice) in lost highway. photograph: tristram kenton
i' ve always loved david lynch' s films, ever since the elephant man ,
she says ,
but there was something really special about lost highway .
mr. lynch’s hypnotic exercise in non sequitur gives us a funhouse nightmare that we mostly look at on film and hear only secondarily. ms. neuwirth’s music gives us a funhouse nightmare in sound. “lost highway” the opera, for better or worse, is as distant from mr. lynch’s movie as verdi’s “otello” is from shakespearean iambic pentameter .
missing from “lost highway” the opera was mr. lynch’s sense of spaciousness and relative quiet: the time for events to breathe and unfold. his great movie does not yell at us as does ms. neuwirth’s opera. its anguishes are subterranean, more to be inferred from what is seen than transmitted through electronically bloated shrieks and groans. music, for all its idiosyncratic power, may be too concrete and ultimately too blatant to adequately translate mr. lynch’s indirections. yelling, on the other hand, is an art form like any other, and ms. neuwirth’s “lost highway” yells admirably. i would have admired it even more if, for just an hour and a half, i could have forgotten david lynch ever existed .
knowing more is usually helpful, but i suspect that olga neuwirth’s operatic take on “lost highway” at the miller theater on friday night will have had a better effect on those who don’t know david lynch ’s movie than on those who do .
le nozze di figaro :
cinque... dieci ...
- - marlis petersen, ildar abdrazakov (met opera )
the design is certainly impressive. running at floor level right through the audience at the young vic will be the
lost highway
down which fred ends up fleeing from the police. up above its central point there' ll be a floating plexiglass box accessible by a retractable spiral staircase, surrounded on all four sides by video screens .
theatre - is launched with the uk premiere of olga neuwirth' s lost highway. based on david lynch' s 1997 film, neuwirth' s theatre piece has travelled widely since it was first seen five years ago - mainly, one suspects, because lynch fans have been curious to discover how such a psychological thriller could be reinvented for the lyric stage .
the libretto is by ms. neuwirth and the writer elfriede jelinek. the nature of opera may have dictated their considerable condensations, reinventions and omissions of whole scenes and characters from the movie. if you don’t know the original, you will probably rejoice in the uncharacteristic swiftness and decisiveness with which the opera moves. if you do know it, you will feel uncomfortably hurried and prodded along, with series of episodes sometimes narrowed to the status of chapter headings .
the opera enlarges the movie’s use of background noise with a wavering stream of static that changes and contorts like the sounds of a shortwave radio dial being turned. some of the words are spoken, some sung, some are a mix of the two. ms. neuwirth’s rejection of traditional dramatic arcs is reflected in short scenes with blackouts and spoken phrases separated by silences .
diane paulus' s production, in a set (by riccardo hernandez) that suspends the glass cube of the madisons' flat above a stretch of anonymous highway, does its best to elucidate the narrative, though it is a mistake to suspend the video screens integral to neuwirth' s concept so high above the audience that their imagery is often overlooked .
how very curious this urge is among composers to turn other kinds of art into operas. a kind of transubstantiation is assumed, whereby literary bread and wine take on a higher form, or at least one of equal worth. cynics would point to the publicity power of ready - made branding, and there is no arguing that tennessee williams or f. scott fitzgerald offer free billboard endorsements from beyond the grave. truer hearts believe in opera’s transformative powers, and i am happy to give ms. neuwirth the benefit of the doubt .
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5 singers, 6 actors; 6 instrumental soloists: sax (s, t, bar) - cl (= bcl, dbcl) - trbn (a, t, b) - elec. git (= hawaii git) - accordion - kbd (synth, elec. pft); 2 (i, ii = picc). 1. 2 (i = ebcl). 1 (= dbn) - 1. 2 (i = picctpt). 1. 1 - perc (2): i = glsp / sd / crot (set) / steel string / 2gongs / 2cowbells / sand bl (lg) / 1timp / wooden bl (med) / bd / tom - t (med) / tgl (med) / wdbl / thunder sheet (thin) / wine glass / beer bottle / tam - t (lg) / 1cym (med) / drum pad / stereo hand microphone; ii = vib / sd / crot (set) / steel string / 2gongs / 2cowbells / sand bl (med) / 1timp / wooden bl / chimes / bd / tom - t (lg) / tgl (sm) / wdbl / thunder sheet (thin) / tam - t (med) / cym (sm) / t. bells / stereo hand microphone - strings (1. 1. 1. 2. 1 (= elec. bass) ) - sampler - live electronics - tape / cd player; fl2, ob, cl2, bn also mouth org
is based on david lynch' s famous film and tells the story of fred madison who becomes increasingly alienated from his own existence. doubts about his wife' s fidelity, about himself, and ultimately about their own true identity lead increasingly to obsessions and to a continuous loss of reality. ominous videotapes and sinister figures appear and evoke the growing feeling of a horror scenario. video and reality also intermingle when, finally, fred, to his own surprise and fright, finds himself with bloody hands in front of his wife' s dead body. he is arrested and sentenced for murder. in the death cell a mysterious transformation takes place: the saxophone player fred madison changes into a completely different person, the car mechanic pete dayton. the second part of this nightmare starts, with augmented speed, but is no less terrifying: like a perpetual whirl, from which no one can escape ...
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ms. neuwirth, a young austrian composer, works hard and imaginatively to keep our attention. music arrives from every direction, hitting us head on or with flank attacks from electrical sound sources all around the theater. there is a pit orchestra leaning heavily toward winds and percussion. snippets of jazz, renaissance polyphony and a host of prerecorded effects pile one on top of the other. the ear can be shattered with big explosions and then soothed by calmer electronic burbles .
the production, largely from and by the oberlin conservatory of music, is small in square footage but hugely complex in its video and sound collages. jonathon field, the stage director, and tom lopez, the sound designer, managed them all very well. the set, with its odd angles and skewed geometry, was by scott dane knowles and giovanni campo. timothy weiss’s pit orchestra was terrific. youth suited the three good principals onstage: alice teyssier, michael weyandt and barry bryan. raphael sacks (mr. eddy) and chad grossman (mystery man) couldn’t help looking inappropriately young but worked hard and well .
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olga neuwirth ...
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david lynch ii elfriede jelinek ii olga neuwirth ii natalia korczakowska ii marzena diakun more info: urltoken urltoken zagubiona autostrada na podstawie scenariusza davida lyncha i barry’ego gifforda libretto: elfriede jelinek, olga neuwirth muzyka: olga neuwirth reżyseria: natalia korczakowska asystent reżysera: jan topolski dyrygent: marzena diakun scenografia: anna met kostiumy: marek adamski choreografia / choreography: tomasz wygoda wideo: marek kozakiewicz światło: jacqueline sobiszewski współorganizator, koproducent: fundacja szabłowska studio obsada / cast: holger falk (fred / pete), barbara kinga majewska (alice / renee), david moss (mr. eddie), piotr łykowski (mystery man), michał sławecki (andy), dariusz bronowicki (al / detektyw lou / lekarz), rafał kronenbereger (arnie), dariusz maj (ojciec pete’a), andrzej olejnik (strażnik / detektyw ed / detektyw hank), marta zięba (matka pete’a). instrumentaliści nfm filharmonii wrocławskiej
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urltoken
there are many films that seem to cry out for operatic treatment. brief encounter would make a good two - hander, or, if you wanted a grand love story with a chorus, captain corelli' s mandolin might do the trick. but, if there' s one film director whose work defies the lyric stage point - blank, it must surely be david lynch. there seems to be no purchase in his world of cold uncanny menace and weird obsessions for the warmth of the singing voice .
special
is one way of describing it - obscure and confusing might be another. even lynch' s greatest fans have some trouble understanding its labyrinthine complexities. the film' s first half is set in the strangely claustrophobic confines of an apartment, home to jazz musician fred madison and his wife renée. their passionless life is invaded by a sinister presence that delivers, unseen, intimate videos of their life to the couple' s front door .
one of these shows the increasingly jealous fred murdering renée. but did he do it, or did he fantasise about doing it? and, when fred mysteriously vanishes from the prison cell on death row, is the young garage - hand pete who appears in his place a genuine double, or merely fred' s fantasy of the young virile man he' d like to be ?
these ambiguities are precisely what fascinated neuwirth. if any composer could possibly create a music - theatre version of lynch' s world, it would be this tiny, delicate but frighteningly intense austrian composer .
neuwirth is one of a new generation of talented austrian composers who seem determined to bury the idea of viennese music as nostalgic and ironic. her pieces are not musical statements in the normal sense. they' re more like vast bottomless soundscapes that summon up the unease and disorientation of modern life with uncomfortable vividness .
so it' s not surprising that lynch' s film seemed a gift .
i love the way it plays with time ,
she says ,
and the way you cannot tell what is reality and what is fantasy. this fits in with my view of music - theatre, because i don' t want to represent things in a naturalistic way. i wanted to create an endless loop of time, with little phrases that recur again and again .
what did lynch himself think of her idea ?
oh, he was so supportive to me, and he' s so open to all kinds of music .
what neuwirth came up with is a vast soundscape in which the sound of 26 players and 11 singers and singing actors is mingled with video images and a synthesized soundtrack. snatches of kurt weill and magic moments and monteverdi add a further strangeness to the mix .
i wanted to blur the boundaries, so that you don' t know which sounds are real and which are coming from the speakers all round the auditorium ,
says neuwirth .
it creates the effect of immersion in a kind of aural phantasmagoria .
diane paulus, the new - york based director of this production, admits the task of finding a theatrical analogue for lynch' s quintessentially cinematic vision has been a challenge .
i knew i had to do something different ,
she says ,
and i knew we couldn' t recreate all these different locations. so what i' ve created with the designer philip bussmann is an installation, something that can transform into many different spaces by stimulating the audience' s own powers of visualisation. that' s the whole beauty of theatre: you have this live situation where the audience completes the work .
these screens might show an action in close - up ,
says bussmann ,
or they can be pete' s garage, or the apartment. so, in effect, the audience can make their own cut or edit by going from the screen to the live action .
the result will certainly be powerfully discomforting and disorientating. but why should we want to submit to something that' s apparently so negative ?
for neuwirth, the bleakness of the work is a testament to its truth .
it' s about the tragic way our individual personalities can be destroyed by our own past. when fred is on death row he wants to forget, and for a moment he thinks he' s escaped. but in the end his obsessions drown out reality. i think this is becoming a bigger and bigger danger for us as our lives become more complicated .
paulus takes a more hopeful view .
i don' t feel that the energy of the piece is negative. in fact, it feels very compassionate. we can connect with fred, because his plight could happen to any of us. and isn' t that why we come to the theatre, to experience some kind of catharsis or illumination ?
in pictures - the story of love and romance: from adam and eve to tinder and chemsex. compiled by martin chilton
in fact, neuwirth' s text sticks closely to the original screenplay, making just a couple of significant alterations, and delivers most of it as speech: there is no singing at all in the first third of the 90 - minute piece. the baffling tale, involving what is known psychologically as psychogenic or dissociative fugue, unfolds as a sequence of disconnected scenes. jazz musician fred madison is sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, and while on death row he is transformed into garage mechanic pete dayton, who has his own problems with the underworld. whether the two men are one and the same, or just unwittingly connected, is never made clear .
the score involves live digital transformations for the ensemble and voices; the resulting sounds are projected around the auditorium. it includes quotations - from kurt weill and a monteverdi madrigal - but otherwise the fine detail gets homogenised by the electronics, an aural emulsion that is generally just a neutral background to the speech and song .
eno' s production is highly accomplished. the cast are outstanding, with mark bonnar as fred, quirijn de lang as his alter ego pete, the remarkable vocal gymnast david moss as the gangster mr eddy, countertenor christopher robson as the thuggish enforcer known as the mystery man, and valérie maccarthy as renee and alice, the girlfriends of fred and pete respectively .
if lynch' s compelling storytelling survives its transformation, it is debatable whether that is because of neuwirth' s score or in spite of it. but the show is worth seeing: this is contemporary european music theatre of a kind rarely staged in britain. for that, at least, eno' s enterprise is very welcome .
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lost highway is a 2003 opera adaptation of the 1997 david lynch film of the same name , by austrian composer olga neuwirth with the libretto by 2004 nobel prize-winner elfriede jelinek . the opera was premiered in graz in 2003 at the steirischer herbst festival of new music with the live-electronics and sound design realized at the institute of electronic music and acoustics ( iem ) using the open source software pure data . it made its american premiere at finney chapel in oberlin , ohio and at the miller theater in new york city in february 2007 , in a production performed by students from the oberlin conservatory of music . it was directed by jonathon field , with sound design by tom lopez , produced by lewis nielson , and set design by scott dane knowles . barry bryan portrayed fred madison . it premiered in the uk in an eno production at the young vic in april 2008 . this production was directed by diane paulus , with set and costume design by riccardo hernandez , video design by philip bussmann , lighting design by mimi jordan sherin and sound design by markus noisternig . the cast included mark bonnar as fred madison , quirijn de lang as pete dayton , valérie maccarthy as renne/alice , christopher robson as the mystery man and david moss as mr eddy/dick laurent . 
lost highway is a 2003 opera adaptation of the 1997 david lynch film of the same name, by austrian composer olga neuwirth with the libretto by 2004 nobel prize-winner elfriede jelinek. the opera was premiered in graz in 2003 at the steirischer herbst festival of new music with the live-electronics and sound design realized at the institute of electronic music and acoustics (iem) using the open source software pure data. it made its american premiere at finney chapel in oberlin, ohio and at the miller theater in new york city in february 2007, in a production performed by students from the oberlin conservatory of music. it was directed by jonathon field, with sound design by tom lopez, produced by lewis nielson, and set design by scott dane knowles. barry bryan portrayed fred madison. it premiered in the uk in an eno production at the young vic in april 2008. this production was directed by diane paulus, with set and costume design by riccardo hernandez, video design by philip bussmann, lighting design by mimi jordan sherin and sound design by markus noisternig. the cast included mark bonnar as fred madison, quirijn de lang as pete dayton, valérie maccarthy as renne/alice, christopher robson as the mystery man and david moss as mr eddy/dick laurent.
lost highway is a 2003 opera adaptation of the 1997 david lynch film of the same name, by austrian composer olga neuwirth with the libretto by 2004 nobel prize-winner elfriede jelinek. the opera was premiered in graz in 2003 at the steirischer herbst festival of new music with the live-electronics and sound design realized at the institute of electronic music and acoustics (iem) using the open source software pure data. it made its american premiere at finney chapel in oberlin, ohio and at the miller theater in new york city in february 2007, in a production performed by students from the oberlin conservatory of music. it was directed by jonathon field, with sound design by tom lopez, produced by lewis nielson, and set design by scott dane knowles. barry bryan portrayed fred madison. it premiered in the uk in an eno production at the young vic in april 2008. this production was directed by diane paulus, with set and costume design by riccardo hernandez, video design by philip bussmann, lighting design by mimi jordan sherin and sound design by markus noisternig. the cast included mark bonnar as fred madison, quirijn de lang as pete dayton, valérie maccarthy as renne/alice, christopher robson as the mystery man and david moss as mr eddy/dick laurent.