POSSESSION @ QTOPIA’S SUBSTATION

Above : Mezzo-soprano Ruth Strutt performed at Qtopia’s Substation with pianist Michael Curtain. Photo: Adam Player.

This piece in Qtopia’s excellently curated Mardi Gras festival is hot. Sizzling, glowing, flaming hot and accessible in the gritty, resonant subterranean space that is Qtopia’s unique Substation venue.

This performance-art-meets opera with a svelte protest in the sidecar hurtles gently at the audience. Fanning its flames is slick direction, capable musicianship and compelling set design that has impact but doesn’t overwhelm the space or detract from the dramatic and musical focus of the two musicians.

Constructed as a triptych with prologue, the vocalist introduces/ re-introduces us to strong, never to be downtrodden women from history and mythology. This presentation links poetry, politics and music and Adam Player’s direction makes this a seamless, a well guided swoop through very different eras and character outbursts. It is attractively studded with excerpts  from some of the pivotal speeches of all time for all of us.

This event has something for everyone. Opera Australia fans can relish the chance to see principal Ruth Strutt in this edgy, one-woman environment, dishing out Donizetti and Rossini with agility and filling the newness of a shift to this venue with a layered sound and nice momentum. They will also enjoy how Michael Curtain’s expertly voiced and shaped piano reductions of the huge orchestral scores support Strutt’s voice in the space and link the three portraits with equal intensity, colour and balanced grace.

So who are the fiery femmes to emerge from the talented singer here? Until we enter the space, walk past the singer chillingly shrouded, glowing with effective fiery lighting from Peter Miller and pick up our fiery red programme sheet we have no idea who is to speak of their plights to us.

This concept serves quite a line-up of non-male defiance. This expose ends with the elegant unfolding of music from Ethel Smyth (whose ‘March of the Women’ featured in the show’s ‘Prologue’ alongside an excerpt from her girlfriend Emmeline Pankhurst’s 1913 “Freedom or Death” speech as Suffragette leader.

Composer Ethyl Smyth’s setting of ‘Possession’, the 1912 poem by Ethel Carnie unfolds in shapely intimacy for us in this mezzo’s smooth voice. The video screen imagery behind Ruth Strutt supports the freedoms and intimate overlaps of solid partnership beautifully, as visually a domestic vista is overlaid with ornate filigree and decoration in sepia-like tones.

I was so grateful for the triptych of strong women to conclude with Smyth’s tribute to domesticity and the freedom of strong people within it. It was a nice come down from the heady heights of Donizetti and Rossini and the history of  the tortured struggles of Sappho and Joan of Arc. Here, this piece’s introduction to Ethyl Smyth is much appreciated. Thanks to fine contouring of the vocal line in front of the appealing backdrop I happily had Ethyl earworms accompany my afternoon for some time afterward. I’m also keen to explore more of Smyth’s works- including her six operas.

Above: Bill posters gaffa taped inside the Substation in support of the atypical Joan of Arc as operatic music from Rossini was sung by Ruth Strutt. Photo: Photo: Adam Player.

As with any good triptych in history, this new trio shares themes but each panel offers contrast and newness of detail to be had when diving into it.

The packaging of the first two women- Joan of Arc no less, then Sappho- ensured no detail or essence of predicament plus feeling palette was missed on our modern minds and ears. The Italian text devoured by Strutt and emitted with nice measure in the small space was each time creatively displayed for us on the screen at the rear wall of the Substation.

This gave a visual arts excellence to the performance. The writing on the screen in cursive segments (for translation reveals during the Rossini Giovanna d’Arco aria) plus the contemporary master-stroke where translation using mobile phone screenshots of text balloons for Sappho’s inner chat (in Donizetti’s Saffo) were genius, hyper-attractive aspects of dramatic nuance and accessibility to opera and legends here.

I enjoyed the emphasis on Rossini and Donizetti- for a mezzo- in the song choices here Ruth Strutt managed well, so ready for her close up in the guise of Joan of Arc or Sappho, delivering runs and coloratura decoration of the pain or anxieties with ease and expert placement above electric piano figures and so close to us in this special auditorium of less than a hundred seats.

The theatricality was enhanced with more spoken word for the earlier hero women. The Rossini music being troped by no less than Shakespeare  (‘Joan la Pucelle’ from Henry VI) and the tranche de Sappho enhanced by a voice over of the ‘Ode to Aphrodite’ from Sappho’s own lyric poetry arsenal.

This dense, but easily flowing tribute to the age-old and successful combo of poetry, music and survival, hanging on to and extending the power of traditional operatic performance is so welcome in this Mardi Gras’ arts festival underlay. The piece keeps us on the edge of our Substation seats, but would succeed in any intimate venue.

The inclusion of Possession at Qtopia this February is not merely an elevated, edgy triumph of creativity and cultural as well as stylistic overlap. It demonstrates how strong talent and convincing performance innovatively packaged can win us over regardless of musical or visual arts style. This opera star’s clear communication of the hers in a rugged history so clearly and with power, passion dazzles our modern instant-impact hungry minds with its multimedia engagement.

I stand in awe of this piece’s entertainment value, the figures explored and the methods used to help us appreciate the struggles and successes of key women over the centuries. I stand hopefully as strong as these characters behind my five star rating with regards to this Mardi Gras event’s innovation, enticement and execution. This show is on fire.