Dire Desire

This review of the new musical produced by the NCPA (in collaboration with others) was commissioned by Mumbai Theatre Guide and is available here: http://www.mumbaitheatreguide.com/dramas/reviews/25-english-play-review-club-desire.asp
The play is frankly awful and raises the question of why and how such tacky work is staged in this city.

“Club Desire”

Written by Sapan Saran.

Directed by Sunil Shanbag.

NCPA, Tata Theatre, 24 October 2013.

The opera “Carmen” is one of those univerally-appealing theatrical works that has been adapted countless times…with varying degrees of success, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. “Club Desire” which is said to be “inspired” by the opera, comes dangerously close to the latter end of this spectrum.

To begin with, one wishes the “inspiration” had dug a little deeper. For “Carmen” is a work about fundamental conflicts on several levels: between good and evil, law and lawlessness, society and the self, love and lust. In this, the soldier Don José’s passion for the wild gypsy girl Carmen is contrasted by the chaste love he shares with his childhood sweetheart Micaela; his need to serve his “flag” and do his duty as a soldier clashes with Carmen’s demands that he throw it all away and follow her (and her smuggler friends) in a life of unbridled freedom.

Carmen too faces a conflict of her own: whether to allow herself to be fettered by the bonds of love which José demands; or be free to follow her primal instincts in responding to the irresistably sexual charisma of the bullfighter Escamillo.

“Club Desire” dispenses with the Micaela character almost entirely, keeping her firmly offstage with only a couple of half-baked references in the dialogue. Thus she ceases to be an effective counterpoint to Carmen, who is here a nightclub singer, appropriately named Chahat (desire, in Hindi). Don José becomes Jayam, a somewhat nerdish, language-obsessed poet; and Escamillo, a flashy DJ named Abeer. The personal conflicts are merely twofold: that of Jayam’s call of duty towards his dying mother vis-à-vis Chahat’s demands; and her choosing between the two men…though even this is made a non-issue when she says its quite all right to sleep with one man while loving another.

Another conflict of sorts is introduced in Sapan Saran’s script by pitting the high art of poetry against the skill required to mix a DJ-set. Hardly earth-shaking; but Ms Saran makes a meal of it. She also holds forth at great length on language, on how “precious” words are, with interminable, jejune debates on their correct usage and expression. Considering all of this begins with an etymology of the expletive “f**k”, it is difficult to take seriously. Ms Saran alternates these intellectual exercises with dialogue that is mercifully naturalistic; and though the latter may not be great writing for the theatre, at least it isnt boring.

The same dichotomy exists in Arundathi Subramaniam’s lyrics, which  attempt to be pithy and raw…but so much ends-up sounding pretentious. A prize line is “The heart is a verb; and it hurts” (WHAT does that mean??). And when she tries to be simple (as in Chahat’s only ballad, near the end of the play) the results are embarassingly cloying and clichéd.

Sunil Shanbag is an immensely respected director; and one wonders why he chose such trite material to work with. One senses he is trying his best; but there are some longeurs during scenes and awkward transitions between them. Also, one senses his hands are tied by fear of the “moral police” in this city; as the interplay between Chahat and her lovers has about as much sexual aggression as adolescent groping in the school backyard. Ditto for her violent encounters with Jayam.

The music is generally hard rock; much of it monotonous, derivative, tuneless and forgettable. The few exceptions are Chahat’s ballad; and a couple of sensuous rhythmic “loops”. There are even a couple of references to the music in “Carmen”, with Chahat attempting to sing Carmen’s signature Habanera to a pop rhythm.

Which brings one to the performances. Manasi Parekh Gohil is a refreshingly “open” unmannered actress; and thus perfect casting for a character like Chahat who is free as a bird. She conveys a sexuality that is integrated into the characterisation rather than a too-obvious add-on. Unfortunately, her voice lacks a true “centre”, coming across as somewhat high-pitched in speech. In song, however, she employs her lower and middle registers more often…though there is a slight, audible “rasp” (probably brought-on by misuse) and some strain on the high notes. Her singing of the lyrics is mostly unintelligible in the rock numbers; or made so by the excessively loud band accompanying her.

Faisal Rashid as Jayam gives a finely-graphed characterisation, going from innocent poet to psychotic, spurned lover. One wishes, however, that his character had been made an English poet, as the frequent departures into flowery Hindi are irritating and distracting in what has been advertised as an English play.

Gagan Dev Riar offers comic relief as the vividly-etched nightclub-owner, though the comedy is too broad and stagey to make him truly convincing. On the other hand, Karan Pandit as the DJ has little meat on what is essentially a two-dimensional character; but he makes the best of it…though one misses a more libidinous swagger.

Ultimately, the most powerful image one remembers from this production is the DJ’s simian-like jumping, gesticulating and nodding to a mind-numbing, repetitive, electronically-generated rhythm. This is, sadly, a sign of the times, one of the themes driving the play. However, it is equally sad and apparent that “Club Desire” panders to the lowest common denominator in the cultural life of this city.

Tales from the holocaust

The review was commissioned by Mumbai Theatre Guide and is available on this webpage: http://www.mumbaitheatreguide.com/dramas/reviews/9-parts-of-desire-english-play-review.asp

“Nine Parts of Desire”

Written by Heather Raffo.

Directed by Lillette Dubey.

NCPA, Experimental Theatre, 11 October 2013.

Heather Raffo’s “Nine Parts of Desire” is a meditation on “the pity of war” and its effects on the lives of ordinary people, specifically Iraqi women, during and between the two Gulf conflicts and subsequent occupation.

The play was apparently inspired by the painting of a nude woman clinging to a barren tree; and it does indeed seem like a portrait-gallery of diverse female characters spanning generations, ideologies, backgrounds, even continents; but sharing the common “spine” of suffering and surviving the most severe physical and emotional conditions.

Layla the painter is central to this group, setting the scene and returning later to offer further exposition and comment. So, to a lesser extent, is the exiled intellectual Huda, nursing her Scotch and providing historical perspective. But it is the image of Umm-Ghada, the black-clad mother of a girl who died when the Americans mistakenly bombed a civilian air-raid shelter, that encapsulates the play’s essence in her taciturn, numbed (and numbing) narration of the horror of what happened.

However, for all its passion, the play seems a little too episodic in its many vignettes, lacking development towards a climax. Lillette Dubey’s direction does not try to induce one; and thus the end does seem somewhat anticlimactic. Even so, the drama flows at even pace, allowing the script to “breathe”, never flagging tension or interest; hard-hitting, humorous, compassionate and angry in turn, with movement and tempo-rhythm to match.

Much of the credit goes to Ira Dubey, the sole performer onstage, who gives something of a tour de force in embodying all these women. Her sheer concentration, energy and range, both expressive and emotional, allow her to paint vividly-etched characters, aided only by simple costume-changes. A minor drawback would perhaps be her near-constant reliance on the lower half of her vocal compass, with the result that some of the women sound a little alike. Although the Iraqi accent tends to vary, sometimes coming dangerously close to Russian. Even so, it is a vital, brave, searing performance.

The production is endowed with an extraordinarily communicative set, designed by Bhola Sharma and Lillette Dubey. This multi-layered mise-en-scène, aided by Mr. Sharma’s evocative lighting, conjures a desolate, tragic tapestry, both internal and actual.

Similarly, Gandhaar Sangoram’s sound-design (with help from Lillette and Ira Dubey) strikes all the right notes (literally) in supporting and commenting on the action. For example, the soft sound of a crying infant underlaying the Umm-Ghada sequence is utterly, appropriately chilling.

One wishes the audience (at least at the NCPA) would not clap or talk after each story…or worse, during a monologue. It breaks one’s concentration and undoubtedly that of the actor onstage, also fracturing the cumulative build-up of tension and emotion.

“Nine Parts of Desire” is not for the squeamish, as made obvious by the involuntary gasps of horror heard from the audience during the performance. However, in its unflinching, unromanticised look at the traumas of war and oppression; and in its sheer humanity, the play offers a powerfully cathartic and intense experience.

Addendum:

On watching the play again, I was struck by the improvement in performance. The vagaries in accent were gone; and the voice was now used to its fullest range and extent. Emotionally too, the interpretation had deepened. In Ira's own words, her performance is now "nicely cooked"!

Beautiful but bloodless

The NCPA in Bombay has recently started screening ballet from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, courtesy Pathe Live. The first screening was of "Swan Lake" and I was commissioned to review it for Mumbai Theatre Guide. A slightly different version was also published on Seen and Heard International, modified for their somewhat more erudite readership! They are available online here: http://www.mumbaitheatreguide.com/dramas/features/13/apr/19-feature-swan-lake-screening-of-tchaikovskys.asp and http://www.seenandheard-international.com/2013/04/21/beautiful-but-bloodless/

The MTG piece is reprinted below:

There are certain works of art that become synonymous with the genre they belong to. And surely, when one thinks of ballet, “Swan Lake” springs to mind.

Though created in the late 19^th century, it has an evergreen, endlessly renewable quality that allows it to be interpreted afresh, keeping abreast with evolution in artistic sensibilities. Part of its appeal lies in its fairy-tale story…deceptively simple but loaded with deep shades of meaning and symbolism.

In this, Price Siegfried on his 21^st birthday must choose a bride. On a hunting expedition in the forest, he comes across a lake and a group of swans who turn into beautiful women, headed by their ‘swan queen’ Odette, with whom he promptly falls in love. She and her maidens are under an evil spell of the magician Von Rothbart -- a spell which can only be broken through true love. The prince promises to make her his own, if she will come to the palace the next day for a big celebration where he will announce his choice of bride. The magician, who has been on the scene disguised as an owl, makes an appearance at the party with his daughter Odile, the ‘black swan’. She is made to look exactly like Odette; and captivates the Prince who swears his love to her. At that time, Odette, the ‘white swan’ is seen fluttering at the window; and the Prince, realising his error, rushes to the lake…into which she jumps, killing herself. After a battle with Rothbart, the Prince follows her, the spell is broken and the swans become human; the Prince and Odette are seen united in the hereafter.

All this is set to music of great passion and lyricism, by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky. Indeed the ballet’s plaintive signature melody, the ‘swan’ theme associated with Odette and her tragic love, is familiar the world over in theatres, concert halls, car-horns and ring-tones.

Probably the most famous modern interpretation of the ballet is in the film “Black Swan” which presents the Odette/Odile dichotomy as both alter-ego and doppelgänger. There is even a hugely successful gay version by Matthew Bourne. More conventional alterations made to the story include Rudolf Nureyev’s Vienna production which ended the ballet in stark tragedy, with the lovers drowning in the flooded lake; while the Soviet authorities decided to give it a happy ending, with Odette saving the Prince from Rothbart and the couple living happily ever after.

The choreographer Yuri Grigorovich was the architect of a legendary production at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre in 1969, which used such an ending. But the performances being screened at the NCPA, also from the Bolshoi and choreographed by Grigorovich (and others) are of a different scenario in which the entire swan saga is presented as a dream, or a figment of Prince Siegfried’s imagination. This robs the plot of impact and comes across as a half-baked cerebral exercise, inconsistent and somewhat pretentious.

Moreover, the music has been chopped and changed, most damagingly at the conclusion. The ballet’s climax is originally set to some of the most gloriously thrilling music ever written, ending with the ‘swan’ theme resounding in a triumphant peroration of brass, percussion and full orchestra. Here, the music reverts to the Prelude and ends with a muted reiteration of the theme, ending in a whisper, leaving the Prince alone onstage and the audience bewildered as to what just happened.

This production is staged in four scenes and divided into two halves. The sets for the palace are elegantly devised, with diaphanous hangings against a cyclorama of streaked sky. By contrast, the lake is drab, bare and monochromatic in a dull blue-gray, a far cry from the atmospheric settings one has seen.

The dancing in this production is exquisite…and bloodless. Maria Alexandrova dances Odette with a pure classicism that is utterly beautiful to behold; but where is the characterisation, the swan queen’s vulnerability, her fluttery nervousness and fear giving way to love? Alexandrova’s Odile has some sparkle but little sense of dangerous sexuality (made unforgettable by the great dancer Maya Plisetskaya) and is ultimately not enough of a contrast. And she almost misses one of her 32 fouettés (turns) near the climax of her ‘black swan’ scene with the Prince.

Among the other principals, Ruslan Skvortsov’s athleticism and long leaps as Prince Siegfried are impressive; but Nikolay Tsiskaridze is an unmemorable cipher as Rothbart. However, the young dancer Vyacheslav Lopatin makes an agile, perky Jester. The corps de ballet dances with charm and precision, the four Cygnets are a perfectly co-ordinated delight; but the Spanish and Hungarian Dances lack fire and pizzazz.

The presentation at NCPA’s Godrej Theatre (on Sunday 14 April) no longer had the severe audio anomalies experienced at the earlier Met Opera screenings reviewed here. In fact, the quality of sound was sweet and clear; but it lacked power, being played-back at an inordinately soft level. The audience was heard complaining bitterly during the interval, after which there was some improvement…but not enough. This reviewer was told the recording was to blame; and indeed there may be some truth in that, since some of the climaxes sounded distinctly compressed. However, the overall volume should have been much louder, to allow Tchaikovsky’s magnificent score to shine through.

This has been a recurring problem with some of the recent Met Opera performances as well, which makes one wonder why the NCPA doesn’t take the trouble to do a level-check before each screening.

Terror....inside and out

This review was commissioned by Mumbai Theatre Guide and is also available at:
http://www.mumbaitheatreguide.com/dramas/reviews/17-english-play-review-27-11.asp

“27/11” adapted by Rahul Da Cunha from “The Mercy Seat” by Neil LaBute.
Directed by Rahul Da Cunha.
Cast: Shernaz Patel and Nadir Khan.
NCPA Experimental Theatre, 13 December 2012, 7pm.

Neil LaBute is an enfant terrible of the American theatre….or rather, theater. His plays take a misanthropic look at the dark side of human nature; are laced with gender politics and imbued with emotional sado-masochism. All of these are apparent in “The Mercy Seat”, his theatrical response to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.

Rahul Da Cunha’s adaptation is called “27/11” and sets the play, not surprisingly, on the day after the terrorist attacks in Bombay on 26 November 2008. However, the script is not about the attacks per se; but uses their occurrence as the backdrop for a tenuous adulterous relationship betweeen boss and employee.

In this, Nina Mehta is the mistress of her married underling Raj Mirpuri, who just happened to be at her home that evening, enjoying her “special Bangkok massage” instead of a boys’ night out at the Taj Mahal Hotel....which was the scene of a bloody terrorist attack. His constantly ringing cell-phone becomes the manifestation of the play’s crux: should he play dead and use this opportunity to disappear and start a new life with his mistress? In examining the options, a veritable Pandora’s Box is opened and the relationship laid bare in all its mutual use and abuse.

Rahul Da Cunha’s staging establishes this dynamic from the outset, with these people “faking the orgasm of life” accosting each other in confrontation, coming together in affection or stalking one another warily across the room. Considering this is a wordy script with only two characters, there is rarely any sense of it dragging, as the tension is maintained more-or-less consistently. However, it becomes clear the play depends almost entirely on the performances by the two actors; and here the results are uneven.

Shernaz Patel endows Nina with her customary sincerity and honesty, especially in the more emotional passages which can be quite searing. Even so, one can't help feeling that some facets of her characterisation remain under-developed, as she is sometimes merely elocutionary where more delineation is required.

Nadir Khan does not seem to have got under Raj Mirpuri’s skin. With insufficient projection of both voice and character, this incredibly insecure, selfish man comes across as a too-generalised and nondescript creation onstage. And there is hardly any electricity between him and Ms Patel.

The production’s design by Dhanendra Kawade could best be described as strange. With long, sharp shards of newspaper hanging from nets suspended over the realistic set, which also boasts a window with three staggered frames made of newspaper and a TV of the same material, it seems a “statement” is being made, trying to place the play in context of the horrific events of 26/11. But the truth is, the script has very little to do with what happened that day; and what might have been truly frightening, had that actually been the case, comes across here as quite unnecessary, pretentious and even obtrusive. The living-room set itself, though, is finely judged and beautifully lit by Kawade and Yael Crishna.

It seems this production of “27/11” is a work-in-progress. One hopes the teething problems of opening night will soon be resolved because, with more work and a little re-think, the play’s potential could be fully realised.

Americana as microcosm

“Our Town” written by Thornton Wilder
Directed by Akash Khurana
Experimental Theatre, NCPA
9 December 2012, 7pm.


“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it --- every, every minute?” asks Emily in “Our Town”, a play about life as it is.

In this, Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning script presents vignettes of daily life in small-town, turn-of-the-century America as a microcosm of universal human condition. However, instead of offering intellectual Existential meanderings about the “why” of things, it concentrates on “how” people live --- their daily chores and concerns, the growing pains of childhood, the discovery of love, the institution of marriage, the finality of death. It urges us to savour each detail of our lives, especially those we take for granted, and make the most of living….before it has passed us by.

This canvas of universal existence is, appropriately, a near-empty stage with a minimum of sets and props; and actions are played-out on it with an extensive use of mime to denote realistic, everyday situations. The audience’s imagination kicks-in, colouring the ‘picture’, aided by sound and light and prompted by the Stage Manager, who acts as narrator, friend, philosopher and guide, taking one through the play from the simplistic scenario of the opening to its surrealistic end.

In Akash Khurana’s production, the script’s three acts have been telescoped into one, dropping some lines and a few minor characters; but the cuts dont bleed. In fact, the experience becomes all the more concentrated and all the better for it, making for an intense ninety minutes. The choice is a courageous one and demands utmost involvement from actors and audience.

It is to Mr. Khurana’s credit that one’s attention doesnt flag….most of the time. There is thankfully no attempt to mimic any kind of American accent (let alone the specific rural New Hampshire variety) but one cant shake the feeling that most of the characters, the older ones in particular, somehow dont ‘look’ right. There seems to be too large a difference between what is said about them (by the Stage Manager) and what is actually seen and heard onstage. It seems the doctrine of ‘universality’ has been taken too far, as some of these characters are robbed of distinctive colour, and therefore, credibility.

Khurana has paced the play judiciously, neither breathless nor somnolent. Though opening night could have been a shade tighter, the action dovetails neatly from scene to scene, some of which are quite complex with multiple simultaneous goings-on, orchestrated masterfully. The miming, however, tends to be somewhat approximate.

The director himself plays the Stage Manager. He was initially a little flat but warmed-up expressively thereafter in communicating with the audience; though one always felt there was a certain distance maintained, perhaps intentionally. The finest performance of the evening came from Lucky Vakharia as Mrs. Gibbs, utterly true and spot-on in emotion and characterisation. Abir Abrar, as Emily, was an unfortunate disappointment, lacking the vocal range and a certain incandescence required to bring this pivotal, trenchantly-written role to vivid theatrical life. The rest of the cast was more than competent.

The production’s sound-design by Dilshad Edibam Khurana is beautifully judged; the many sound-effects, offstage and on, accurately chosen and executed. The mise-en-scène, aided by Akarsh Khurana’s adept lighting, conjures-up a three-dimensional world, extending well into and around the audience.

One only hopes the audience would feel similarly involved, because, on the whole, this production of “Our Town” remains earthbound. The play’s deceptively simple script has nuggets of quiet, homespun philosophy which can transcend into a deeply uplifting, even spiritual experience….a transformatory magic seldom realised in this staging.

The Met: Live in HD....at the Godrej Theatre, NCPA.

One event, two reviews....the "event" being "The Met: Live in HD" series of opera-screenings from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, now being shown in Bombay.
I reviewed the second of these, Verdi's "Otello", and have written two different pieces on it. One is a feature on Mumbai Theatre Guide, focussing on the somewhat inadequate experience of watching these in the Godrej Dance Theatre at the NCPA. This is also available at: http://www.mumbaitheatreguide.com/dramas/features/12/nov/29-the-met-live-in-hd-feature.asp
The other is a review on Seen and Heard International (reprinted here, below this piece) and includes a detailed evaluation of the performance of the opera.



Opera is the ultimate combination of music and drama; and New York’s Metropolitan Opera is one of the finest presenters of this complex, thrilling art.

In India, our appetites have been whetted by recent operatic productions mounted or imported by the NCPA and Neemrana Foundation. But now we are able to watch truly world-class performances from the Metropolitan Opera, in their global initiative titled “Live in HD”.

In this, select Saturday-afternoon performances are broadcast via satellite to several countries. And, to accommodate those in time-zones where the broadcast-time would be inconvenient, the entire performance is recorded and played-back later via a file saved on hard disk. Thus the screenings in India take place some time after the original broadcast but offer an identical experience, complete with intermissions giving fascinating glimpses into backstage preparation and change of scene. There are also interviews with singers and creative crew which some opera-lovers would probably find interesting, though some might well say “Get on with it!”

The NCPA’s Godrej Dance Academy Theatre is the venue for these screenings; and one wishes it were better suited. This auditorium is shaped like a horizontal shoe-box, with some of the audience seated to the far left and right of the centrally-located screen. Thus, if one is not close to the centre, one should be prepared to watch the video from an extreme angle.

Morover, one should also be prepared for some serious anomalies in the sound, which would be dominated by the output from the speaker(s) to which one is closest. The audio configuration is 7.1, with side and rear speakers mounted on the appropriate walls; the centre-channel located (as it should be) behind the acoustically-transparent screen; and the musically all-important front left and right speakers placed on the extreme left and right of the WIDE stage, embedded in the proscenium behind perforated metal grilles.

Herein lies the rub. For the bulk of the orchestral sound comes from these speakers, whose positioning effectively splits the musicians in two. And the audio suffers from severely curtailed high frequencies, probably because the metal grilles block the tweeters and rob treble sounds of detail and impact. Sadly, this is made all the worse when one is seated in the centre, as then you are way “off-axis” from the left and right speakers, which dulls the treble still further.

To make things even more difficult, the Met recordings usually do not place singers’ voices exclusively in the centre-channel; instead, a voice’s placement in the soundscape is dependent on the singer’s actual position onstage. Thus, voices often emamate from extreme left or right, where the sound-quality is markedly inferior compared to when they are in the centre and reproduced by the correctly-mounted centre-channel speaker. This becomes glaringly obvious when a singer crosses the stage.

But what of the performances? Not everything from the Met is beyond reproach and the current season, presenting screenings of “L’Elisir d’Amore” and “Otello” so far, is no exception. Moreover, at least six of the twelve performances slated for broadcast are of old productions, some of which are available on DVD/Bluray or online with different, stellar casts. The new productions promise fresh insights; but whether they will actually deliver the goods musically and dramatically remains to be seen.

In sum, watching the Met at the NCPA “Live in HD” is a mixed experience. It certainly affords a glimpse into the workings of a world-class opera-house and offers a reasonable facsimile of the real thing. One hopes, however, that the audio problems will be sorted-out. If not, people owning high-quality audio-video systems may well want to watch these performances at home.

The Met's Moor in Mumbai

Commissioned by Seen and Heard International and also available at:
http://www.seenandheard-international.com/2012/11/26/the-moor-in-mumbai/
Verdi: “Otello”
“The Met: Live in HD” screening.
Godrej Dance Academy Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, 24.11.2012 (JSM)

Otello: Johan Botha
Desdemona: Renée Fleming
Iago: Falk Struckmann
Cassio: Michael Fabiano

Conductor: Semyon Bychkov
Production: Elijah Moshinsky
Set Designer: Michael Yeargan
Costume Designer: Peter J. Hall
Lighting Designer: Duane Schuler
Choreographer: Eleanor Fazan


“Othello” is surely the most conjugal of Shakespeare’s plays. The relationship between the Moor and his wife is its dramatic spine, made all the more evident in Verdi’s opera “Otello”. Herein, Arrigo Boito’s masterful libretto graphs this relationship through each of its four acts, starting with unmitigated love and ending in brutal murder.

Each act has at least one major scene between Otello and Desdemona; and it is up to the principal singers to bring their tragic destiny to operatic life. Watching the Met’s Live in HD presentation of the opera in Mumbai, it became all too apparent this relationship was dead on arrival, for there was little or no chemistry between Johan Botha’s Otello and Renée Fleming’s Desdemona.

Ms Fleming is, of course, well-known for her portrayal, starting with her career-making step-in as understudy in the same Met production, soon after its première in 1994. Her Otello then was Plácido Domingo; and their extraordinary partnership was documented for posterity in the DVD release of a telecast performance. Here we have Johan Botha partnering the diva in another broadcast, this time via HD to theaters all around the world, but charged with little or no electricity.

Much of the problem lies in Botha’s stolid, stock characterisation, with little of the psychological layers suggested by Domingo. Some may find Botha’s simplicity disarming, though many others would probably be irritated by his face-making and posturing, sometimes unintentionally hilarious in the manner of a B-movie monster-villain. Vocally, though, he is lyrical and utterly musical, notwithstanding the slight beat in the voice, with secure top notes almost making one forget the lack of squillo (most noticeable in his opening Esultate!) and sheer power associated with the role. This was unleashed only occasionally but to great effect; for example in the shout “quella vil cortigiana!” in the Act 3 duet.

However, in the same duet, it was Ms Fleming who had to shoulder virtually the entire burden of making the scene dramatically involving. Even so, Botha followed with a very moving account of the monologue Dio mi potevi, with scrupulous attention to the score, delivering much of it in a hushed monotone rather than resorting (like so many others, including Domingo) to showy melodrama. Not surprisingly, the highlight of his performance was the final Niun mi tema which was sung with aristocratic restraint; and almost left this reviewer with a lump in the throat.

Ms Fleming, on the other hand, gave a no-holds-barred performance; and occasionally it seemed she may have been trying too hard. Undoubtedly with age, her voice has lost some of its warmth and volume, though she can still float some ethereally lovely pianissimi. Her singing, as always, remains rooted in rock-solid technique and innate musicality; and her dramatic sensibilities have certainly strengthened over the years. As mentioned earlier, she was quite riveting in the crucial Act 3 duet; but her Willow Song was a little too “loud” and, for the most part, curiously unmoving.

Falk Struckmann seemed severely strained by Iago’s high tessitura, hectoring rather than singing his way through the part. Barking and snarling do not a characterisation make; and Mr. Struckmann resorted far too much and too often to such ungainly, extra-musical effects to make his points. Even so, his Credo ended with a thrilling top F, sustained well into the orchestral conclusion; and Era la notte had some interesting touches. His Drinking Song, however, was a near-disaster.

Semyon Bychkov was in the pit and offered a reading of hyper-clarity, with every semiquaver given its due. This robbed the performance of bite, vitality and visceral impact, which so much of “Otello” demands. The ensembles with chorus were the worst affected, in particular Fuoco di gioia! which was funereal instead of joyful. And the antics onstage during this scene could only be described as embarrassing.

Bychkov’s measured approach paid-off in some of the more introspective passages like the introduction to Act 4; but he did a complete volte-face at the end of Act 2 for the Vengeance Duet, which was taken hell-for-leather and threatened to turn into a “runaway train”. The Met orchestra did the best they could, with some ravishing playing from the principal string and woodwind players.

Elijah Moshinsky’s venerable production has worn well, although on renewed acquaintance the many huge pillars seem to dwarf the action and cramp the stage, especially during the great finale of Act 3 where the chorus and supernumeraries are literally squeezed into the space between them. Even so, it is certainly beautiful to look at, aided by Duane Schuler’s shaded, saturnine lighting.

The HD screening at the Godrej Dance Theatre in Mumbai’s NCPA needed better adjustment of black-levels to allow more detail and definition in some of the darker scenes, which seemed a little washed-out. And the sound, despite an impressive array of equipment from B&W and Classé, was a huge disappointment.

The problem lies in the deployment of speakers in this horizontal shoe-box of an auditorium. Those carrying the musically all-important Front Left and Right signals are at opposite ends of the WIDE stage, embedded in the proscenium behind a perforated metal grille. As a result, the orchestra is virtually split into two; and high frequencies are severely muffled. The center-channel speaker is, however, correctly positioned behind the acoustically-transparent screen; and the anomalies in sound-quality become glaringly obvious when a singer’s voice crosses the soundstage from one side to the other, through the center.

Even so, being able to watch the latest offerings from the Met, in countries like India where opera isnt regularly performed, is a welcome treat for music-lovers. In this, the Met’s “Live in HD” is a worthy initiative indeed.