Before going to REDCAT on Wednesday, Feb. 19, to see Los Angeles Opera’s presentation of Adoration, the 2024 work by composer Mary Kouyoumdjian and librettist Royce Vavrek, I decided not to watch the 2008 movie by filmmaker Atom Egoyan that was the opera’s basis.
Kouyoumdjian and Vavrek’s work — which premiered last January at the Prototype Festival in New York City, produced by Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) — has its own integrity, and while seeing the film would have provided a skeleton key, the experience would have unquestionably lessened the impact of the plot’s hall-of-mirrors twists and turns.
As timely as the latest news flash or social media post, the opera deals with a troubled high school student, Simon (played by tenor Omar Najmi), plagued by the ghosts of his deceased parents. At the urging of his French teacher, Sabine (soprano Miriam Khalil), he begins a video project of family interviews, bent on unraveling the Gordian knot of his troubled memories. Soon the boundaries between actual memories and fantasies become blurred. What seems crystal clear to him quickly disintegrates into a mixed-message maelstrom after a video of this partly fictional family psychodrama that he posted online goes viral.
Was his father, Sami (baritone Roy Hage), the devil, a Muslim terrorist capable of planting a bomb in the luggage of his pregnant wife on a flight to Tel Aviv? Was Simon’s mother, Rachel (mezzo-soprano Naomi Louisa O’Connell), the saint he remembers, a concert violinist whose life was sacrificed in an act of jihad?
The clash of religions is a major theme. Rachel and the uncle who is raising Simon, Tom (baritone David Adam Moore), are not Muslim, which puts Rachel’s family at odds with her husband’s beliefs. With much of the action taking place around Christmas, the adoration of the Christ child collides with Simon’s adoration of his mother. Also in the family is Rachel’s terminally ill and embittered father, Morris (bass-baritone James Demler).
There is also a two-dimensional cast of outspoken online characters who appear as part of the production’s elaborate video component. Their commentary, provoked by Simon’s posting, resembles a schizophrenic Greek chorus. Through the production’s use of live video (courtesy of cinematographer April Goldberg) and projections (designed by Camilla Tassi), the outspoken commenters hover with images of Simon’s mother like pixilated dreams on the rotating surfaces of the set (designed by Afsoon Pajoufar).
Kouyoumdjian’s score combines abstract electronic music, which provides almost a white-noise foundation, with an overlay of Middle Eastern tonalities played by a string quartet. The human element is particularly apparent in the extensive soloistic writing for first violin, performed evocatively by Armen Anassian on Wednesday. The score is as multifaceted in its instrumental and vocal lines as the plot is ever-changing and emotional in its moods and confrontations.
The cast, though overamplified for the intimate black box setting of REDCAT, was exceedingly well directed by Laine Rettmer and conductor Alan Pierson.
Presented on LA Opera’s Off Grand series, the production vividly illustrated the artistic ideal of less is more. The singers were so close that the performances took on a visceral quality. LA Opera’s association with BMP has proved a perfect fit, supporting the latter’s adventurous productions. And REDCAT itself, carved (quite literally) out of the basement parking structure of Walt Disney Concert Hall, embodies the concept of art from the underground, while still being a less risky hideaway to present work on the cutting edge.
