Annelies Van Parys' chamber opera Usher (2018) is a psychological thriller that lingers. Based on Claude Debussy's unfinished operatic vision, a production has emerged in collaboration with screenwriter Gaea Schoeters and director Philippe Quesne that focuses on a psychological, social power play.
The production was performed for the first time on a Belgian stage. It is a joint project of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin and Folkoperan, Stockholm, in collaboration with Muziektheater Transparant and Nanterre-Amandiers centre dramatique national. The performance, conducted by Marit Strindlund, grows from unrest into a scenario of madness. The audience is thus directly drawn into the downfall of the House of Usher.
Red thread of timbral colours
Usher has a rich prehistory. It is based on The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. The French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) drew inspiration for his unfinished opera La Chute de la maison Usher (1908-1917) from it.
Debussy's impressionism and Annelies Van Parys' (°1975) spectralism are each the unique result of the composer's search for their own colour language in music. Van Parys is known for her treatment of sound "an sich". With this, she creates a sonic world based on timbre and tonal colour. Debussy sought in harmony and orchestration a poetic language of his own.
Both composers have developed a sound expression for themselves that searches for colour and experience. It is therefore not surprising that it would be Van Parys who would complete the story of Debussy's Usher with her own musical language. The result is a fusion of tones where it is sometimes difficult to grasp where Debussy begins and Van Parys ends.
Power play between madness and reality
In Usher, reality and the absurd merge into one another. The staging is surrealist cinema not far removed from the style of filmmaker David Lynch (Twin Peaks). A space filled with television screens showing the crumbling reality of the house. Snow-white walls on which Lady Madeline (soprano Alexandra Büchel) – the twin sister of Roderick Usher (baritone Ivan Thirion) – serenely paints over blood-red hands. From the beginning it is clear that something is amiss. Everything is disorder in the House of Usher.
A rare voice of reason is L'ami (baritone Martin Gerke). This stands in stark contrast to the manipulative doctor (Le Médicin, played by tenor Daniel Arnaldos). The physician uses the mental state of Roderick and his sister as a perverse political-social experiment. What unfolds during the opera is a descent into madness, which is sung as an omen by both Ushers.
Timbral colours and musical resurrections
Musically, the line between Van Parys and Debussy is very fine. As the story unravels, Debussy's ethereal impressionism seems to drift further away. In its place emerge floating, spectralist sound segments. These are most audible in the rising madness in Roderick triggered by the sudden death of his sister – according to the doctor the result of the feeble House of Usher. The result is a sonic palette in which Debussy and Van Parys sometimes alternate, and then merge into one another again.
Moreover, there are several striking snapshots: the lilies – the symbol of innocence – in the hands of the deceased Lady Madeline, the invisible ghost choir, the Gregorian motifs as Roderick speaks of the underground crypt, and the perversely sounding patter song as the doctor reveals his political power play to the audience. Van Parys plays with various motifs. The most striking tableau is Lady Madeline rising from the dead like a mad Dido. Here she almost literally quotes the final words from Henry Purcell's Dido's Lament.
"Remember me, but ah! forget my fate" nicely sums up what ultimately remains of the doomed House of Usher: a surrealist, painful memory. With this opera, Annelies Van Parys creates a psychological snapshot in which she allows both Debussy and her own musical world their due.
- WHAT: Annelies Van Parys: Usher (2018)
- WHO: Opera Ballet Vlaanderen
- WHEN: from 27 February, livestream available for two weeks after the premiere
- PRODUCTION: Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (co-production with Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin and Folkoperan, Stockholm) in collaboration with Muziektheater Transparant and Nanterre-Amandiers centre dramatique national, seen 27 February 2021
- PHOTOS: © Annemie Augustijns/ Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, © De Tijd