Missing by Marie Clements

Caitlin Wood (front) and Rose-Ellen Nichols (rear)
 in City Opera Vancouver’s 
Missing 
Photo: Michelle Doherty, Diamond’s Edge Photography

On Friday, Rebecca and I did get out to see Missing by Marie Clements (libretto) and Brian Current (composer).

Here is a 2017 review from OperaCanada if someone would like to read a bit about the Canadian opera, Missing.

I should put a warning here.  I have read the rest of this post and I seem to go on and on.  Now that is amazing to me for when I sat down, I wondered if I could find anything to say about it.

A few weeks ago someone told Rebecca to buy ticket for this opera, that it was being revived and would be in Victoria for two days, then in Regina and Prince Rupert. She was grateful for this opportunity might have just passed us by without us seeing it. I was really excited about going. We arrived at the Beaumont Opera Centre early to get our tickets and there was a long line of people waiting to get in the door, some of whom we knew. We stood and chatted outside in the lineup, surrounded by the sights and sounds of the inner city in the late autumn evening. Rebecca spotted a family of racoons hiding in brush under the trees. One of them was on the sidewalk and turned to give direct eye contact to us.

There was general seating and we were way back in the line.

We found a spot in the middle, midway between the back and front of the hall. We sat down, and one of Rebecca’s former students, Jasmine, was behind us with her husband and in-laws so we chatted. The room felt warm with friendship. The two women beside me were looking forward to the show as well, though all of us know that the subject matter is painful: tragedies that occur on The Highway of Tears, the Highway 16, the stretch from Prince Rupert to Prince George. So many missing and murdered women and girls.

The dissonance in the music felt right to me, as the opera began, appropriate for the subject matter. Over the years the atonal music seems as though it normal. The opera runs straight through, no intermission, and at the end, people who felt that they could not go away with good energy were told that there was smudging, water and a tradition that involves eagle feathers for those who wished to have it in some rooms downstairs.

I am a hug fan of HD live operas – I am enchanted with new film techniques and new technology has created a resurgence in the interest about operas. I get a little chill in the theatre when they say that this opera is being seen in 65 countries or that there will be 7 million viewers. Usually someone who is introducing the opera reminds all of us to support our local opera companies, saying that nothing can replace the sound of human voice doing live opera.

I haven’t been to live opera for a long time. So this was our night for that.

Part of the opera is sung in Gitxsan. The subtitles were in English. I might have liked that the best about the opera. Our protagonist goes to Vancouver and takes language lessons, learning Gitxsan. I thought the metaphor was beautiful – we who want to be involved in the lives of indigenous people, must learn to speak their language.

Rebecca and I haven’t had much of a chance to talk about the show. Oh, maybe we have, since we did talk about it on the drive home. But sometimes days pass and then it may feel like time to talk about it again. Both of us wondered about the marriage scene. Our protagonist gets married using a Gitxsan wedding ceremony which involved music and leaves gently falling on the couple as they stood together. The falling leaves may have represented a new season, their new connection to themselves and the trees and animals around them? I don’t know. I think I will take the opportunity to watch this show again if it comes our way.

One side bar about the language in the show: the libretto feels like poetry. As it was being sung, I could feel myself neatly parsing it into its beautiful shape in black and white on paper. I have never done that with opera before.

Entertainment is amazing these days. In the last few Shakespeare plays I have seen that have come from London, especially at the Bridge Theatre, the audience has become part of the show, drawn in by the actors walking out into the audience, or by having acrobat/actors hanging above them on a trapeze or climbing ropes heavenward. In the case of Missing, there is a scene where the professor turns directly to the audience as though she is answering questions after a lecture, and two of the singers are placed in the audience and dialogue with her. Rebecca and I were sitting close to the singers in the audience, so that was lovely. And there was the feeling that we had really entered the opera, and that we had some hard questions to ask of ourselves as we sat in that classroom.

After the clapping and the bows the leader of the One Circle Drumming Group came on stage and said there would be some songs and dances performed, so we stayed sitting on our chairs. The singer of the first song could project his voice with the same power of the opera singers. Double opera for us that night.

I looked around the audience. Many of those who have lived in Victoria for a long time are familiar with the sound of the Indigenous drumming and singing. The bodies and hands of some in the audience gently rocked to the songs and sometimes the dancers circled the outside of the hall. When the singers announced the Whale Song, they said that anyone could join them who wished to do so. Rebecca was one of those who mov forward to dance with them, swaying with the right number of beats first 4 moves backward and then 4 moves forward, then from side to side, then putting her hands in front of her gently pressing them in a circling motion forward as though she were a whale swimming in the water.

This was a wonderful night for anyone who wanted has started to think about the practice of reconciliation.

Arta