Rock Opera, more lame than rocking
Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Because it was rock opera, the participants must paint their faces a la rock group Kiss. Because it was rock opera, the guitar should sound as distorted as possibly. And because it was rock opera, singer Renny Djajusman felt free to scream meaninglessly and obnoxiously.
Whether the plot made sense (if there was any plot at all), or at least matched the criteria of opera, it did not really count.
In the recent Rock Opera Indonesia, they -- the well known, so-called top notch local artists, did it again.
They offered a grand concept of art or music performance, surrounded it with a lot of hype, saying that it would be spectacular and that it would give the audience something to contemplate on.
As they said, hype lulls, and the rock opera turned out to be more pretentious than rocking, more boring than inspiring and more tiring than enlightening.
The performance held on Jakarta Convention Center was a joint effort between director N. Riantiarno and musicians Jockie Soerjo Prajogo and Elfa Secioria -- who respectively acted as scriptwriter/director, music director and orchestra arranger/ conductor.
Obviously, it was aimed at incorporating opera, rock, and orchestra.
It was a star-studded event with singers -- rock and non rock, such as Iwan Fals, Andy /rif (is this a typing mistake?), Berlian Hutauruk, Aning Katamsi and Shanty.
The performance was divided into three acts: Realitas (Reality), Gugatan (Accusation) and Harapan (Hope).
Each act was filled with the singers singing several numbers, almost all of them were Jockie's old songs, only three were new: Sepotong Cinta (A Piece of Love), Marsinah and Ladangku Subur (My Field is Fertile).
The scheme was not unexpected. The first act was all about marginalized people portrayed in songs like Orang-Orang Kalah (Defeated People), Bongkar (Demolish), Nyanyian Urban (Urban Song) and Marsinah. The latter is inspired by, and named after, the labor activist in Surabaya who was brutally murdered in 1993.
In between songs, the actors from Riantiarno's Teater Koma performed bits of dialog, dances, and criticized the government and military through metaphors.
The message was quite clear and not unreadable, it was just not poignant and witty enough, or even funny, unlike the usual Teater Koma's performance.
The plot was obviously the missing piece. Even though the sets of songs seemed appropriate and interconnected, they gave the opposite impression, leaving the few people in the audience scratching their heads. Some even left the venue.
Even the Asian hero himself, Iwan, could not save the day, let alone newcomer Shanty. Two big screens on each side of stage, which showed footage of wars, riots and stuff did not help to elevate the emotion either.
The event actually showed a bit of life when singers Nugie and Andy performed a duet on Godbless' Kehidupan, which was a real rockin' and lively number. But that was about it.
Beside a complete waste of talent, last week's performance showed that the artists can only present the problems of this country in a superficial way.