Collaborative opera blends traditions of East and West

Collaborative opera blends traditions of East and West

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

A performance that promises to showcase a fine blend of the East
and West by using traditions of western opera as well as
Indonesian theater will be brought to stage in Yogyakarta.

The joint musical production between Indonesians and
Americans, Raja Bali Candrakirana (the King of Bali
Candrakirana), is scheduled to be staged at the Societet Closed
Art building at the Yogyakarta Cultural Center on Thursday and
Friday as part of the month-long Yogyakarta Arts Festival (FKY)
VX 2003.

Co-sponsored by Yogyakarta's Indonesian Institute of Arts
(ISI) and the American-Indonesian Exchange Foundation, the opera
is also meant to reintroduce opera to art lovers in Yogyakarta in
particular and in Indonesia in general.

ISI Rector I Made Bandem said it had been years since such an
opera had been staged in the country. He referred to the full
stage opera Norma (Norms) composed by Bellini and directed by
Apul Simanjuntak that was performed in Bandung and Jakarta in
1980.

Commissioned by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, the
King of Bali Candrakirana opera is a colossal music production
with a cast of more than 40 singers, dancers and actors, as well
as 40 orchestral and traditional Javanese gamelan musicians.

Composed and written by Vincent McDermott, a retired professor
at Lewis and Clark College in the U.S. and a visiting Senior
Fullbright Scholar teaching at ISI Yogyakarta, the opera's
libretto was prepared by Kathy Foley, a professor at the
University of California and a Senior Fullbright Scholar to
Indonesia.

Noted Indonesian author Bakdi Soemanto of Gadjah Mada
University's School of Cultural Studies was appointed as the
translator of the libretto, while Budhi Ngurah and Yudiaryani of
ISI Yogyakarta were assigned as conductor and stage director
respectively.

Linda Sitinjak, the lead singer, will act as Candrakirana/Kuda
Narawangsa, Kriswanti as Prawan Jagalan, and Albert Wishnu as
Panji. The rest, including the orchestra and gamelan players,
come from ISI.

"Vincent himself will take part in the performance as the
dalang (puppet master), in which he will sing suluk (a song which
preludes narration) ordinarily performed in a shadow puppet
show," said Yudiaryani, who was also present at the press
conference Monday.

The 90-minute opera, according to its composer, is unique in
the sense that it is a fine mixture of East and West -- using the
traditions of western opera as well as the Indonesian Theater.

"Musically, there is a Javanese gamelan and a chamber
orchestra. The vocal styles range from bel canto to pesinden
(Javanese singer usually accompanying gamelan music). Stage
movements usually follow western conventions, but at times
puppets derived from wayang (shadow puppet) supplant the singers
on stage," Vincent explained.

The existence of a dalang in the opera, accordingly, is also
borrowed from the wayang show. However, unlike in the traditional
wayang show in which he stays behind the stage as the master of
lore, magic and music, in this particular performance he will
stand center stage to pull the strings. The opera will also
showcase a trademark wayang scene involving ordinary folk whose
clownish ways provide a light but trenchant view of what happens
on stage.

"You will also see a lot of comedy in this contemporary
performance, just like in the original opera," Vincent said.

Presented as a contemporary work, though, the whole blend will
come through the story taken from the classic episode of the
adventures of Panji from East Java to Sumatra, in which Panji's
wife Candrakirana, like in many of the tales, disappears without
warning and explanation.

In some stories, audiences are taken to follow Panji's
adventures while searching for his beloved wife.

"In this particular lakon (story), the focus is on the
princess. We follow her adventures rather than his, and they are
marvelous to see," Vincent said.

First she is transformed into a man, a strong, able and
independent person who, with a stroke of luck, becomes the King
of Bali under her new name of Kuda Narawangsa. And it is in Bali
that he/she must take a stand and defend his/her new country
against Panji who, with his armies, is on the trail that he
thinks, of his wife.

Other characters in the story include King Klono, a beloved
figure in the dance world of Indonesia, whose foolish bravura
normally ends sadly in his demise, and Prawan Jagalan, the
serpent demon, whose machinations lead her to near triumph over
our heroes.

And certainly, there will be romance between Panji and
Candrakirana. "Basically, its central theme is love, that the
power of love can bring everything together, but it is framed
with feminism," Yudiaryani said.

I-BOX:

The King of Bali Candrakirana opera will take place at
Societet Closed Art building at the Yogyakarta Cultural Center at
Jl. Sriwedani on June 19 and 20 with ticket prices ranging from
Rp 15,000 to Rp 50,000.

A dress rehearsal of the opera will take place on June 18 with
tickets priced at Rp 5,000.