The acrobatic Siegfried
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Terminator is one of the influences for this new Canadian Opera Company production
Pajama-clad bodies idle in the air above the singers onstage. Arms, lit to look like fire, wave out of a pit. A human pyramid falls apart then slowly regroups in the face of a sword-wielding protagonist.
Those bodies, arms and shapes belong to six dancers choreographed by Donna Feore to help reveal the dreamlike world of Wagner’s
Siegfried, presented by the Canadian Opera Company from Saturday to Feb. 4. This opera follows brave Siegfried as he slays a dragon, confronts the gods and frees sleep-enchanted Brunnhilde trapped within a ring of fire.
“Siegfried doesn’t use traditional choreography,” says the renowned choreographer and stage director in an understatement. So no high kicks or and toe tapping. What audiences will see is controlled movement to tell the story through imagery and simple, striking tableaus that morph into something else.
Feore calls this approach to Wagner’s five-hour (with intermissions) epic “intimate and introspective.”
Feore stresses that the movement is “a vital part of the storytelling.” The physical demands of hanging harnessed above the stage for an hour and a half required trained dancers, she says.
“Dancers are people who can control their bodies,” she says, adding core strength is needed to keep them upright and to make controlled, slow movements while dangling in the air.
They must rely “on muscle memory” for the flying scenes in order to navigate a very tight space, strewn with debris from the blown-up world.
Feore praised the crew who guide the dancers from behind the scenes, pulling ropes attached to harnesses. There are also 24 supers (extras) in the performance wearing white pyjamas, who help convey the idea that “it’s all been a dream,” says Feore.
To portray the dragon Fafner in Act II, the six dancers form a pyramid, which crumbles under attack but gathers itself again to do more battle.
Feore got the inspiration for this scene from a cyborg that Arnold Schwarzenegger battles in the Terminator series, which would be blown up only to have all his body parts reassemble “into something bigger and scarier.”
Killing the dragon has to be a big challenge, Feore says, so that Siegfried “can be a hero.” She describes Fafner’s end “as a dance of death. He dies one layer of himself at a time.”
At all times, the dance movements continue the story, says Feore, who has high praise for her dancers, who are required to be onstage for almost the whole show.
Dancer Chad McFadden says one unusual aspect of the show is “we get to be acrobats.” In the first act, which he spends hanging above the stage, “it helps to let your mind wander.” Siegfried, Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Saturday to Feb. 14. Tickets coc.ca.