English National Opera, Saturday, 9th September 2006
Music: Steve Chandra Savale/Asian Dub Foundation
Text: Shan KhanDirector: David Freeman
Designer: Es Devlin
Lighting Director: Wolfgang Goebbel
CHARACTERS
Muammar Al-Gaddafi....... Ramon Tikaram
Fatima.................... Sharon Duncan-Brewster
Salah Al-Bouziad........... Riz Ahmed
King Sayyid Idris Al-Senussi/ Revolutionary Committee Chairman....................Abdi Gouhad
Mr.Mister................... Ben Bishop
Ronald Reagan................ Martin Turner
News reporter................. David Cardy
Major Abdulsalam Jalloud....... Nicholas Khan
Omar Al-Mukhtar.............. Geoffrey Burton
Gaddafi's mother/Bedouin woman/Megaphone woman...........................Bridgitta Roy
Politician...................... Nigel Cooke
Chorus/dancers
Musicians..........Asian Dub Foundation (Steve Chandra Savale, Babu Stormz, Sanjay Taylor)Orchestra of English National Opera
Conductor/Music Supervisor James Morgan
****************************************************************I didn't know what to expect when I bought the tickets for this, but I knew it would at least be interesting. (Fatal word, which has connotations of damning with faint praise, but I meant that I was curious to know what it was about - I had no idea what 'Asian Dub' meant, AND I have to explain it on a German-language message board!!!) It isn't an opera in any accepted sense of the term, more a play with continuous sound track - nearly all the dialogue (rhyming text by Shan Khan) is spoken - and about 99% of it is clearly audible over the soundtrack!!
The structure is perhaps more that of a musical, especially with the finales (First Act and final ensemble) with the entire ensembledancing and singing.I still haven't quite worked out how to describe Asian Dub, but the opening music resembled film scores by Bernard Hermann and/or Korngold - so not completely alien to the audience. It was overlaid with sounds of Arabic instruments - or perhaps what Westerners tend to think of as Arabic instruments. I believe that 'Asian Dub' originated in Britain rather than on the Indian sub-continent, it's a type of music invented - or at least developed - by young British Asians.(Young British people of Asian descent?) I was especially impressed by the music at the beginning of the second act (or second part, anyway, after the interval), with ominous drum beats (if anyone knows anything about rock music, perhaps they could tell me whether this is 'drum and bass'?)
The drama attempts to tell the story of Gaddafi - how he perceived/perceives himself, how the perception of him in the West has shifted from being seen as a monster to a certain rapprochement (this in spite of the Lockerbie bombing, which most of us still vividly remember). In other words, there is no attempt to glamorise Gaddafi or portray him as a hero (except in his own eyes...); the tyranny he exercised (and continues to exercise) over his people is far from being glossed over. There is reference to what he has done to improve the status of women, illustrated by his bodyguard of 'Revolutionary Nuns' (this IS what they are called, apparently!)
The staging is a mixture of dialogue, video projections, singing and dancing....very like a musical, in fact.
Inevitably it has been compared with EVITA (and with NIXON IN CHINA )- to my mind, the music at least is considerably better than anything Andrew Lloyd Webber could produce - whatever criticisms can be made of the score, it can't be accused of being syrupy and insipid!There is a certain air of Edinburgh Fringe about the project - worthy, well-intentioned, had its good points, which I have attempted to delineate.
I also attended the pre-performance discussion, at which the point was made that the work was an attempt to attract audience that would not usually go to the opera. They certainly succeeded in that aim! But will all these young Asians come back for LA TRAVIATA at the end of September? I certainly hope so.
It works the other way too, as an audience member observed during the discussion - 'normal' opera-lovers (are any opera-lovers normal??) would probably never have thought of going to GADAFFI had it been performed at an 'ordinary' theatre (though I might have gone if it had been in Edinburgh), and we did have to leave some of our pre-conceptions at the door.
