TORONTO -- The year was 1985 -- and as thinking people all over the globe heaved a sigh of relief that this world had escaped the horrors foretold in George Orwell's 1984, Canada's Margaret Atwood released a cautionary novel that would prove, over time, to be every bit as disturbing as Orwell's tome and, sadly, a little more prescient.
That book, titled The Handmaid's Tale, has since spawned not only a movie of the same name, but more recently, an opera, which premiered in Denmark four years ago. After too long, that opera has eventually made its way to Atwood's homeland.
The Handmaid's Tale opened in its Canadian premiere, under the aegis of the Canadian Opera Company, at the Hummingbird Centre Thursday night, a much anticipated partner event to the SuperDanish Festival of New-Fangled Danish Culture that kicks off at Harbourfront Centre next week.
With an English libretto by Paul Bentley and set to an often dissonant but powerfully evocative score by Denmark's Poul Ruders, this is still very much Atwood's tale, however pared for the stage it might be.
Told in flashback, it recounts the horrors of the life of Offred, a woman in the Republic of Gilead, a stark theocracy established in the none-too-distant future on the remains of what we now know as the United States of America, a nation which has fallen victim to utter chaos.
The opera opens with disturbing images of food riots, natural disasters and bombings, quickly and effectively sketching in details of this new world order.
Married to a divorced man in The Time Before (as the pre-Gilead era is known), Offred has been sentenced to life as a Handmaid -- a biblical take on surrogate motherhood, inspired by the story of Jacob and Rachel.
In the world of Gilead, Offred's single purpose is to mate ritually with a member of the all-male ruling class, the sole purpose being the creation of babies who will then be raised by his presumably sterile wife.
Lonely, haunted by memories of her earlier life and cut off from everything familiar, Offred slowly re-awakens to the power of love and trust -- with potentially dangerous results.
Designed with boldness (and a bit too much clutter) by Peter McKintosh and directed by Phyllida Lloyd, best known in these parts for her staging of Mamma Mia!, this Tale moves like a rocket, never flinching from the sexuality and sexism, both explicit and implicit, that fires its telling.
So ultimately, it is propelled by both the eerie power of the story and by Ruders' score, a blend of gospel, musical theatre and modern operatic idioms that merge in an effect that's often hauntingly liturgical.
It is all served up with polish by the COC Orchestra under the direction of Richard Bradshaw, underlining strong, even courageous, performances from mezzo-sopranos Stephanie Marshal (as Offred) and Krisztina Szabo (as Offred in The Time Before), as well as by fellow mezzos Jean Stilwell and Andrea Ludwig, sopranos Jennie Such and Frederique Vezina, tenors Victor Micallef and Stephen McClare, bass Kurt Link and a host of others.
As operas go, The Handmaid's Tale is at best a respectable offering, but in the end -- and ironically right up to the end, when librettist and director conspire to walk all over a powerful, dramatic and natural climax -- it is never less than powerful and compelling theatre.
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