Breaking the Waves review — Financial Times

9/28/2016

Breaking the Waves, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia — review — FT.com

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Music

Breaking the Waves, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia — review Adapted from Lars Von Trier’s film, Missy Mazzoli’s opera is potent and inventive

Kiera Duffy in 'Breaking the Waves' © Dominic M. Mercier AN HOUR AGO by: George Loomis

When Bess, seeking approval from her insular Scottish Calvinist church to marry a Danish oil­rig worker named Jan, is grilled about whether “outsiders” have ever contributed anything of value, her face lights up: “Their music!”

Perhaps the composer Missy Mazzoli construed Bess’s answer in Lars Von Trier’s 1996 film Breaking the Waves as an invitation to make an opera out of this unorthodox but fascinating love story set on the Scottish coast. Recognising the musical potential of a relationship charged by both carnal excitement and deep spirituality, Mazzoli has produced an adaptation that, in its world premiere, proves as potent as its model. https://www.ft.com/content/c644a274­83c7­11e6­8897­2359a58ac7a5

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9/28/2016

Breaking the Waves, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia — review — FT.com

The opera closely follows the film. When Jan is paralysed in a rig accident, Bess blames herself for praying too fervently for his return before his term was up. Her uniquely personal faith becomes an issue again when Jan urges her to have sex with other men and then tell him about the details. Horrified, yet having been taught that a husband is master of his wife just as Christ is leader of the church, she accedes. Aspects of the film are inevitably elided, such as Bess’s vulnerability after the church demands her ostracisation, but the miracle following the tragic close is there to marvel at, unfathomable though it is.

In Mazzoli’s version, a male chorus menacingly represents unfeeling church elders as well as the men with whom Bess partners sexually; key words from Royce Vavrek’s well­ structured libretto recur to impart unity; and long­spanned instrumental lines intersect to create wide­ranging harmonies amid considerable thematic invention. Tempos are perhaps too uniform but they aid in understanding the text. Best of all are the high­lying melodies Mazzoli gives Bess, which underscore at once her fragility and her inner strength.

They are glowingly sung by Kiera Duffy in a superb portrayal that contends no less well with demands for nudity, and John Moore personifies Jan’s masculine strength. The sets, designed by Adam Rigg and dominated by concrete sea walls, prove more effective than at first you’d think, and James Darrah’s direction ensures dramatic tension. Steven Osgood presides over a well­drilled and sonically diverse 18­member instrumental ensemble.

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https://www.ft.com/content/c644a274­83c7­11e6­8897­2359a58ac7a5

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