OPERA REVIEW : Warmly Human ‘Europeras’ From Cage

PURCHASE, N.Y. —  It has taken New York nearly a year. But the city where John Cage has lived for more than four decades, and a city whose artistic life--visual and literary as well as musical--owes a deep debt to Cage’s influence, has finally done something grand for Cage’s 75th birthday, which occurred last September.

Thursday night, Cage’s only opera, and his most elaborate work, “Europeras 1 & 2,” which was commissioned and premiered by the Frankfurt Opera last December, received its first United States performance at the venturesome Pepsico Summerfare festival on the campus of the State University of New York here.

That isn’t exactly New York City, but it is a close enough commute to have drawn a glittering parade of art world celebrities for the premiere.

Much has been made of how “Europeras 1 & 2”--the title comes from the fact that there are two parts to it, separated by an intermission--is the work of chance.

Cage, in his usual fashion, set out to create an opera in which no elements would relate to one another. Through his computerized I Ching programs, he produced an elaborate collage of properties, actions, costumes and lighting that are all chance-determined.

So are the instrumental fragments drawn from the orchestra parts of public-domain operas. The singers--there are 19 of them, each a different voice type--are free to choose their own arias from the standard repertory. There is also a tape of more opera noises that is broadcast throughout the proceedings.

The result is that the stage--and I doubt that there has ever been operatic stage business more complex or precise (an extensive computer program was needed to manage the traffic flow of singers, dancers and props)--is in constant flux, and so is the music.

But the surprise for many people--especially art mavens who love the idea of Cage and who love the man but who haven’t the patience for the music--was simply how beautiful, how warmly human and, ultimately, how touching the spectacle proved to be.

Amid nearly hysterical cheering (and some pointed booing) at the evening’s end, one also noticed tears.

It may be hard to convince anyone who doesn’t experience “Europeras” that it isn’t foolish. No description of it can do it justice.

The stage actions, which were suggested by randomly selected pages of the dictionary, are pure monkey business. A knight produces giant soap bubbles with his lance while a recording of “La Donna e mobile” is heard in the background. A heldentenor dressed in pirate costume slides down a ramp while singing the Forging Song from “Siegfried.” And lots more.

Sometimes there are as many as six singers singing different arias at once. Each player in the orchestra goes his or her own way, playing orchestral fragments within stated time brackets, or not playing at all--as is often the case. A clock is the conductor.

Then there are the props--plants, animals and hundreds of objects, big and small, ordinary and exotic, along with a spectacular, large model zeppelin, which flies over the audience. The same unpredictability goes for the costumes, which come from costume encyclopedias and cover an amazing range.

Visually, “Europeras” is arresting, reminding one of the look of Robert Rauschenberg’s collages.

Flats containing elegant, enlarged black-and-white etchings of opera composers, historic singers and animals (or parts of them, everyone a different size) rise and fall on their own program.

So does the lighting, which is made up of hundreds of computerized light cues, with only white light used, so that the colors of the costumes stand out strikingly against the black, gray and white backgrounds, with shadows and intensity ever new and different.

Added to all this is movement. Singers come and go by just about every manner of conveyance imaginable--they are carried by dancers, dragged, elevated, lowered, brought in by wheelbarrow.

One singer drives a jeep, another rides a carriage drawn by dancers wearing horse heads, a third pedals an old-fashioned tricycle, a fourth rows a gondola. A singer is even lifted in and out of pairs of shoes that are progressively carried around the stage.

The dancers have their own business to do as well, and it involves all kinds of movement, from the everyday to the balletic.

All of this takes place on a stage entirely open, against the brick wall of the back of the stage, the parked properties forming the “set.”

And it is this openness, this demystifying of opera, that begins to explain the strong emotions that “Europeras 1 & 2” can generate.

Cage has created operatic activities, very precise and very disciplined activities, that are a celebration of the human spirit and of the environment.

In this he does not make the performers, the stagehands, himself or any aspect of our world seem something apart from the audience, but rather, causes everyone to share in an experience.

To accomplish this, Cage displays an unshakeable belief in what he does, and the wisdom and patience to wait for things to happen.

And if one has the patience to wait through “Europeras 1 & 2” (the first is 90 minutes, the second 45), lots does happen, and all of it, in its own way--as the sounds grow and fade in volume, as the lighting and action become more or less exciting--begins to feel increasingly purposeful and important.

“Europeras” is also a celebration of putting an opera on the stage. It was an unprecedented feat for the Frankfurt Opera originally to mount the production in Germany, aside from the fact that its opera house burned down two nights before the slated premiere. It was also a major accomplishment for Summerfare to finance importing the Frankfurt Opera production and 150 members of the company.

There were some differences between the Frankfurt performances and the production here. The company Thursday seemed slightly subdued compared with a more frolicking performance in Frankfurt earlier this year, but it also seemed more focused.

The Purchase theater, moreover, offered more versatile stage facilities and effects than had the makeshift performance in Frankfurt’s Schauspielhaus.

But mainly in both cities the company demonstrated the kind of commitment and love for what it is doing that every opera performance should aspire to. And part of the evening’s joy was in appreciating the way Cage not only won over his audience, but had won over the company as well.