IT’S TOUGH TO ADORE ADORATION;
BUT WAS IT MEANT TO BE?
I always look forward to new operas presented by Los Angeles Opera and Beth Morrison Projects. They are back with another one: Adoration, with music by Mary Kouyoumdjian and libretto by Royce Vavrek, based on the eponymous 2008 Canadian film by Atom Egoyan. It premiered last year at Prototype Festival in New York City and opened last night at REDCAT for its first West Coast performances through February 23.
The story concerns Simon, a high-school boy who releases an online video, wherein he accuses his long-dead Arab father of planting a bomb in his deceased mother’s luggage while Simon was still in her tummy. His hospitalized grandfather also rants against Simon’s father. Simon lives with his maternal uncle, who is scraping by. His teacher, who encourages Simon’s storytelling, gets fired, but stays in the picture. We see Simon’s parents meet and die. Meanwhile, his story gets random people fired up online.
Omar Najmi as Simon (with image of Naomi Louisa O'Connell as Rachel)
Vavrek’s libretto is largely faithful to the movie, to its detriment. There isn’t anything grossly derailing as I was seeing it, but the plot seemed increasingly ridiculous the more I thought about it afterwards. There’s a preposterous subplot where Sabine, the teacher, puts on full Muslim coverings and visits Simon’s home, where she intentionally provokes Tom, the uncle, as he’s decorating for Christmas, all for the purpose of showing Simon that his uncle isn’t as closed-minded as he thinks.
A significant part of the movie is spent on online reactions to Simon’s story; this aspect is kept, shown as video close-ups of random people talking, but feels disjointed from the main story. It seems like they could have been some kind of Greek chorus, but I found it difficult to connect their commentary to anything, especially as they became increasingly unhinged. I ultimately dismissed it as something to cover scene changes. The libretto also suffers from a jarring too-late introduction of cursing, which reeks of laziness. Overall, it casts too wide of a net, encompassing racism, religious hatred, Zionism, capitalism vs terrorism, and so on. It’s a lot to take in for such a simple story. I would have liked a more ruthless reduction of the movie’s plot and structure, instead focusing our attention on the characters and their interesting situation.
Miriam Khalil as Sabine and Omar Najmi as Simon
Kouyoumdjian’s music reminded me of György Ligeti’s music as used in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); dense, unsettling, rumbling, chanting. She composed for amplified string quartet and audio playback, all at a fairly constant moderate tempo. The music isn’t off-putting, but no musical setting stands out for me. There is enough lack of variation that when the show sags in the middle, I struggled to stay awake. Vocal lines are straightforward and easy to follow, but this is another one of those modern slow-sung operas that could just as well have been a play. For an opera that’s about different ways that people can express intense love, there is a curious lack of passion and ferocity in the music.
David Adam Moore as Tom and Miriam Khalil as Sabine
The onstage cast is excellent, with clear diction, confident singing, and are believable as their characters. Omar Najmi (Simon), David Adam Moore (Tom), Naomi Louisa O’Connell (Rachel, the mother), Roy Hage (Sami, the father), James Demler (Morris, the grandfather), and Spartak Syrota (the silent role of young Simon). Especially good is Miriam Khalil, who plays Sabine, a character who eventually comes to dominate the story. Laine Rettmer’s direction is passable, but the lack of furniture does the sometimes-aimless blocking no favors. In contrast to the expert players above, the acting in the prerecorded Internet videos feels amateurish. I would like to blame it on the stylistic clash between singing and talking, but I don’t buy that argument.
Oma Najmi as Simon, Naomi Louisa O'Connell as Rachel and Roy Hage as Sami
The single set by Afsoon Pajoufar consists of a wall, with rotating cutout, on a turntable. Furniture and props are minimal. The homes’ interior décor looks cheap. The set is all in white to accommodate Camilla Tassi’s supportive projection design. Initially, the video consists of extreme closeups from Simon’s camcorder, which always makes me cringe in theater productions. Thankfully, that gives way to video that set the mood instead, complementing what the characters are thinking about, often Simon’s mother. However, the video is often out of sync, though I did appreciate the high frame rate of the live segments. I usually sit in theaters wishing that productions ditch the use of video completely; that wasn’t the case here. Open captions were projected, unnecessary since the singing was so clear. Scott Bolman’s lighting design is unmemorable, but there is an effective bit concerning the parents’ death. Rachel Dainer-Best provides realistic costumes, but give Simon’s mother extravagant dresses, matching Simon’s veneration of her.
Roy Hage as Sami, Naomi Louisa O'Connell as Rachedl, James Demler as Morris,
David Adam Moore as Tom and Spartak Syrota as Young Simon
Armen Anassian, Cynthia Moussas, Jing Peng, and Sarah Kim comprise the quartet that plays live somewhere backstage, though you’d never know it, given Daniel Neumann’s heavy amplification. They might as well have been entirely prerecorded. It wasn’t offensively loud, but it was too loud for what is, essentially, an intimate chamber opera. Once again, they use distracting face mics, but, in a first for Beth Morrison in L.A., the mics are almost small enough to make me not complain. (Though I won’t stop until they’re completely hidden, or better yet, no amplification at all!) With all the layers of prerecorded material layered on top of the quartet, I didn’t think that there were live musicians at all, catching me off guard when they came on stage with their strings for the curtain call.
Omar Najmi as Simon and Spartak Syrota as Young Simon
As the performance went on and the plot devices kept piling, I began to feel lost, as if I missed some critical information mentioned once early on. I hope that Kouyoumdjian and Vavrek don’t consider the opera locked and done. There’s something buried here that could really move me. The ending is beautiful, but it takes a lot of work to get there.
photos by Greg Grudt
Adoration
LA Opera Off Grand and Beth Morrison Projects
REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater), 631 West 2nd St (under Disney Hall)
ends on February 23, 2025
for tickets (starting at $84), visit LA Opera
for more info, visit Mary Kouyoumdjian
