My congratulations to San Francisco composer colleague Erling Wold on the premiere of his new opera Mordake. This is not a review, and so I’ll stop short of providing a lot of detail.
Mordake is a very beautiful work, both musically and visually, performed most courageously by the amazing John Duykers. It’s very difficult to describe, so I’ll just tersely say that it’s a one-man show about a guy with two faces.
The visual element is a brilliant, dynamic video background, similar to the one used for Berkeley Opera’s Bluebeard’s Castle, described earlier. It is full of surprises but any scent of gimmicky is trumped by Duykers’ performance, which never loses focus. Erling’s music has a harmonic sense that is personal and unique without sacrificing beauty or transparency. The synthesizer-based score is full of timbral surprises.
Anyone in the Bay Area with the slightest interest in music theater should try to see this. Here are details on how to do that.
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