PRODUCTION:
Where the garment gapes
VENUE:
First performed at PACT Theatre on 4th June 1999.
PROGRAM NOTES:
“Between April 1786 and January 1790 Mozart collaborated
with Lorenzo da Ponte to produce three operas - Le
Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan Tutte - which have
become close to the heart of Western high culture. Mozart
responded to the libretti’s increasingly single-minded
concerns with female moral frailty by using the full force
of his compositional virtuosity to represent women rendered
helpless by their own desire. These erotic cameos are striking
similar to the basic stuff of the glossy images that our
culture seeks to marginalise in an act of chronically transfixed
fascination. Whilst what we call pornography provokes this
systemic confusion of rejection and preservation, Mozart’s
music is generally thought to transcend all such moral
ambiguity, and even all dramatic exigencies, in its absolute
expression of universal human nature: Cosi fan tutte indeed!
The implicitly violent idea that women must fall victim
to sexual flattery by virtue of their nature, and its articulation
by means of the most beautiful music, renders such moments
deeply unsettling and provocative”
Charles Ford, COSI? Sexual politics in Mozart’s operas
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Cosi fan Tutte is indeed an unsettling opera. The libretto’s
overt misogyny, and it’s treatment of the notions
of fidelity and romantic love still provoke a strong response
from modern audiences. The opera is largely without context,
and the characters behaviour is never explained - for instance
it passes without comment in the libretto that the women
cannot recognise their fiancés in fancy dress!
It is particularly the finale of the opera that captured
our attention. At the conclusion to the opera, there is
the obligatory ‘happy ending’. This is a comedy,
after all. But the wedding which provides the conclusion
of the opera is ambiguous- the libretto does not specify
exactly who marries whom. Is it conceivable that all of
the characters marry each other in random pairings? Or
to take a position of absurdity, that man marries man and
lives ‘happily ever after’? It is from the
notion of interchangeability inherently present in this
scene that particularly suggests the idea of the ‘generic
lover’ - around which we have constructed this performance.
We have created a performance spectacle in which all of
the roles and performers are interchangeable, where actual
and performed identity is constantly in flux. Any role
in the opera, or in the theatrical performance devised
from the opera, can be and is performed by any member of
the group, or even occasionally assigned to inanimate objects.
Anything or anyone can be positioned as the object of desire,
or to use Barthes term, “the loved object”.
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Where the garment gapes is an experiment in creating an
engaging performative critique of an operatic narrative.
Through this performance we have attempted to illustrate
this operatic narrative through a number of methods of
representation, both textual and musical, while simultaneously
generating a series of interludes which provide commentary
on the source material and on the performative act itself.
Of primary concern throughout this piece is the pleasure
of the audience. Stylistically, we would position the work
of version 1.0 somewhere between Frumpus and The opera
Project, while acknowledging our enormous debt to the performance
making strategies of Chris Ryan, with whom all of us have
worked at some point. Thanks to all of you, and I hope
you enjoy our small contribution to the culture.
A menacing comedy of interchangeable desire, identity
crisis and gender trouble. Mozart's morally ambiguous opera
'COSI FAN TUTTE' is savaged by aesthetic terrorists whose
sweating bodies penetrate the gaps in the operatic product.
Where the garment gapes... is an hilarious and irreverent
reconstruction of Cosi Fan Tutte utilising the musical
abilities and demonstrating the idiosyncratic physical
language and abstract imagination which are the hallmarks
of version 1.0’s rapidly evolving style - highly
energetic, visually stunning innovative live performance.
Combining physicality, musicality and textual deconstruction,
version 1.0 seeks to create an exciting theatre of synthesis,
collapsing false distinctions between theatre, dance, performance
art and opera.
The work weaves together disparate notions of disposable
fashion, interchangeable identities, voyeurism, sexual
violence, and pedestrian fascism into a provocative reading
of Mozart’s morally ambiguous chamber opera Cosi
Fan Tutte. Created by David Williams in collaboration with
performers Damon Young, Jane Parkin, Angie Macnevin, Keith
Kempis and Chenoeh Miller, this work was initially developed
during a creative development residency at The Centre for
Performance Studies, Sydney University.
"a playful performance event... a confident first
outing from the version 1.0 team."
"This all singing, all dancing (well, all singing,
all taking the piss dancing), all piano playing ensemble
are gutsy and loads of fun... If you're into quizzing the
notion of 'women rendered helpless to their own desires',
a review of misogyny in classical forms, ideas of the generic
lover, or a cross of meta-theatrics with beautiful singing
and more beautiful piss take, then Version 1.0 is for you."
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PRODUCTION
CREDITS:
Devised and performed
by:
David Williams
Jane Parkin
Damon Young
Keith Kempis
Angie Macnevin
Chenoeh Miller
special
guest appearance by
Craig Anderson.
Lighting
by:
Craig Anderson.
From a scenario by David Williams.
Sound
by:
Tania Payne.
House
Management by:
Rebecca Wilson.
Music
by:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Madonna
Faith No More |
