.png)
Beverley Brommert
A conversation with Fred Abrahamse and Marcel Meyer, co-directors of TRIPTYCH, WOMEN AT WAR, offers an enlightening perspective on the multiple challenges involved in staging this highly innovative trilogy, which is included in Cape Town Opera's upcoming festival of SHORTS.
Three composers; three libretti; three periods from the 11th century to the 19th; three diverse takes on the theme of women and their involvement in war... all artfully condensed into one hour of intense performance. This collage is a daunting task for those collaborating in its production.
Happily Abrahamse and Meyer have both the experience and the zest requisite to tackle it head on, and with the additional participation of a highly respected musical director like Jose Dias, they find it more rewarding than onerous.
"A partnership like ours' brings an ebb and flow of energy in directing as we complement each other, and more than one pair of eyes is invaluable in clarifying issues that would otherwise pass unnoticed," says Abrahamse, while Meyer adds that having another director for the music is a blessing.
Both concur that, in musical and operatic productions, the conductor brings the benefit of a third eye, to make "a holy trinity of this current collaboration." Dias will provide accompaniment on the piano.
Apart from the unifying thread in this triptych (the theme of women and war), the piece has been carefully structured for coherence.
Flanked by two works of uncompromising grimness is a lyrical, tenderly bittersweet inclusion to afford some relief from what Abrahamse terms "the diabolically demanding gymnastics for both piano and voice."
For all the apparent variety of style and period, Meyer explains that the three pieces are organically and logically connected to one another.
They evolve chronologically from mid-11th century to early 20th century, their focus narrowing progressively from a broad awareness of war (Norway's invasion of Britain), to specific conflict rendered more complex by politics (the American Civil War of the mid-19th century), to the deeply personal war with one's own psyche as identified by Sigmund Freud at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries.
This deepening intimacy in the depiction of war as experienced by women adds nuance to the general thrust of the triptych: war is futile, destructive, and will always be with us.
Three gifted sopranos (Alida Scheepers, Nonhlanlha Yende and Clara Hugo) are entrusted with solo interpretation of each bijou work, the most demanding arguably the first in the sequence: sung a cappella, it requires swift transition between multiple roles and includes, among other challenges, a duet-for-one and rendition of a sizeable chorus by a single voice.
Another tour de force is the last "panel", in which a stream of consciousness libretto combines with Schoenberg's unsettling music innocent of any identifiable leit-motif. Meyer sums it up as "thirty minutes of constant change to reflect layers of enigma as every facet of the protagonist's harrowing experience is mined..."
Between the two is a luminous, poignant aria sung by a woman, soon to be widowed, reading the last letter from her husband facing death on the battlefield.
This elegantly staged triptych may be arduous fare for performers and audience alike, but it has the merit of stimulating the latter as it rewards effort with cultural and intellectual enrichment.
TRIPTYCH, WOMEN AT WAR is one of four bite-sized Operas featuring at the Festival of Short Operas, which runs at the Wave Theatre in Cape Town from 7 to 16 March 2025. Tickets can be booked online through Webtickets.