Adult-themed opera leaves Detroit cast in tears during rehearsals
The New York Times wrote of 1996’s “Breaking the Waves” that “risky does not begin to describe ... the raw, crazy tour de force” that dared “to fuse true love with lurid exploitation and pure religious faith.” Nearly 30 years later, an opera inspired by
h director Lars von Trier’s controversial movie is coming to Detroit. Like the film, it’s about a woman named Bess who defies conventional decency and puts herself in danger in an attempt to save her gravely injured husband, Jan. Love stories don’t get more challenging than this. No wonder the rehearsal process for this version of “Breaking the Waves” has been emotional at times.
“Yesterday, I think there was some kind of subconscious memo that went out to the entire team, like, ‘This is the crying day,’” says soprano Kiera Duffy (Bess) during a break in the rehearsal process. ”Ben (Taylor), who plays Jan, was crying in the morning. And then we did Bess’ death scene yesterday and I just completely fell apart. It’s a very difficult story, and it’s very difficult to live in that space for six hours a day every day. Any human with a pulse and a soul is going to be deeply affected by this story.”
“Breaking the Waves” will be performed Saturday and April 12 and 14 at the Detroit Opera House. The work by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek premiered in 2016 at Opera Philadelphia, with Duffy in the lead role as Bess. It earned strong praise, winning 2017’s best new opera award by the Music Critics Association of North America.
The co-production presented by Detroit Opera was first performed in 2019 at Scottish Opera and directed there by Tom Morris, who’s the artistic head of the Bristol Old Vic theater company. The content is recommended for mature audiences only because (like the film) it includes explicit language, nudity and sexual contact.
Like Carmen or Madame Butterfly, Bess is a compelling, ill-fated heroine. The story, set in 1970s Scotland, centers on her life in a seaside town dominated by a severe religious sect. Bess takes a bold step by marrying Jan, an uninhibited outsider who works on an offshore oil rig. When he must return to his job, she is
overwhelmed with sadness and prays for his return. Then a devastating accident leaves Jan almost totally paralyzed and Bess plagued with guilt.
In a twist that explores the gap between exploitation and grace, a tormented Jan asks Bess to have sex with other men and report back to him with the details — a request she comes to believe can cure his deteriorating condition. As Bess embarks on her disturbing task, it raises questions about love, faith and goodness as defined by society.
In a statement on the opera, Detroit Opera artistic director Yuval Sharon said: “’Breaking the Waves’ is a work that tells the story of a woman’s agency in an impossible situation, grappling with what it means to be pious and good.”
That interpretation speaks to 2024 and contemporary issues confronting women. “We’re living in a time where there is a lot of discussion about personal freedom and personal autonomy and what we get to do with our bodies. This piece dives deep into what happens when people, some of which with the best intentions, are telling someone else what they should be doing — and the consequences of that,” says Diana Wyenn of Los Angeles, the director of the Detroit performances.
“There’s a way to read this piece that Bess is a victim of her circumstances, and that is not the core of this piece. Bess has agency and is taking actions to do what she believes will save her husband, and that subtle shift is monumental and is something I can get behind, As a woman director, I’m not interested in women’s suffering that doesn’t ultimately show us our own power to affect our lives and each other’s lives in positive ways.”
Wyenn describes the opera’s set design as stunning. Revolving sets with massive columns take the audience from the expansiveness of oceanside cliffs to the intimate space of a hospital room and more. “The set is transforming as much as the people (are),” she says. Wyenn calls the score by Mazzoli breathtaking and nuanced, noting that it has unexpected moments like electric guitars that represent waves crashing over rocks.
The conductor for the performances, Stephanie Childress, a principal guest conductor of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, says
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she responded to “the strong material that Missy provided,“music that is as seamless in its transitions as the rotating set design.
Childress, along with Wyenn and intimacy coordinator-assistant director Katherine Coyl, are examples of just how important women are to the production’s behind-the-scenes leadership.
“I’m very happy to share creative space with women, especially when it’s such a sensitive topic,” says Childress. “Really, we have people breaking down in the rehearsal room because it’s very powerful material and it fundamentally involves the abuse of power that people have exerted over women for thousands of years. Really, you feel like it is a history of womenkind, and it’s not just abuse from other men; it’s abuse from other women as well.”
Duffy says “Breaking the Waves” has been a part of her life for nearly a decade now. She was involved in all of the workshops before its Opera Philadelphia premiere eight years ago and compares being so closely involved with the shaping of a character to “wearing a bespoke suit form Saville Row.”
According to her, one of the challenges of becoming Bess was avoiding being overly influenced by actress Emily Watson, who earned an best actress Oscar nomination in 1997 for her luminous acting as Bess.
“I had to be really careful not to be Kiera Duffy playing Emily Watson play that. She gives such an iconic performance,” she says. As she and others stress, the operatic version differs slightly from the film, so “it was important to me to use (the opera) as the main source material.”
“Breaking the Waves” is a heavy piece for an artist to explore, but Duffy says she doesn’t take the emotions home with her.
“It’s really, really important when you do a show like this to have a really safe cast and production team, people who are kind, people who are supportive. It’s always important, but in a piece like this, it’s critical. And we have that,” she says.
“We do the things that are really, really difficult, and then we go on break and we’re all laughing. You have to have people who are psychologically healthy in order to be able to go into these places and not get sucked into a vortex that they can’t get out of.”