As my first opera, Two Boys turned out to be much different than what I had pictured an opera to be like. Even though it is a contemporary piece, with the use of less classical music and traditional sets and costumes, I still had gone into the Metropolitan Opera with the mindset that I would probably end up not really enjoying the performance. Contrary to my expectations, I had a great time – one because of the atmosphere of the opera house and two, because it was more modern so it was easier to relate to and understand the characters.
Each successive new generation now grows up surrounded by developed forms of technology where cell phones, computers and music devices are integrated into their daily lives. As opposed to the Detective Inspector Anne Strewson who didn’t own a computer and barely knew how to use one, it is nearly impossible for someone to accomplish anything work related now without using technology. It was interesting for this opera to take place in 2001 because it was at the turn of the century when people were just starting to test out computers and the Internet. For our class to go to this opera, we each had to step back and put ourselves back in time for more than a decade so that we could be in the mindset of the characters of the opera.
I loved how the gauze walls were used in the set. Not only were they somewhat transparent so the audience could see the people with the computers who were sitting inside, but it also served as a screen for the projection of the chat room conversations to be shown. This part of the performance made me think about Benjamin, Barthes, Auslander and Phelan’s references to “liveness”. As each character sang out their part of the conversation in the chat, the same line would appear behind them on the screen. This contrast of actually hearing the characters say their lines and thoughts and just seeing it on a screen goes well with Benjamin and Auslander’s views in how mediatized events are “secondary” to the live events. Even though the chat conversations copied showed exactly what the characters were saying and even how they were feeling through the use of emoticons and punctuation signs, we were not able to sense the emotions in the text as we did when the characters sang it.
This play of emotions in a live conversation versus an online chat room conversation shows how even the best reproduction lacks the presence of time and space of the actual event. Some people may have sided with Phelan and Barthe in believing photography, videos or recordings have the presence of the live body or actual event, and that they are “references” to the real event, I still think this opera shows us that this is not the case. In this crime mystery, the tape recordings of Brian and Jake by the shopping center are the perfect example for Barthe, Benjamin, Phelan and Auslander’s views on “liveness” because the videotaped version of the actual event proved to be only a surface image to what was really happening.
-Winnie Yu (Blog A)
As an agreeable response to Winnie, Two Boys was actually an ideal choice as a first opera for many of us novices. The contemporary integration of technology in such a traditional setting of culture made the performance quite the unexpected show. As many, like Walter Benjamin and Peggy Phelan, are skeptical critics of projection and photography as an enhancement to art, I couldn’t help but agree in Winnie’s opinion that Two Boys did indeed make use of technology efficiently.
This excellent use of projection on the semi-transparent stage panels created a contrast between the “liveness” of an actor’s lines and the “liveness” of the actor’s chat messages. I call them both ‘liveness’ because, as a story saturated in the world of the Internet, the digitalized form of the performance took an important relevance itself. Sure, some may agree with Benjamin in that video is a “depreciation of the presence of the artwork”, but none should disagree with the fact that these projections, which were cleverly and beautifully staged on the panels, enhanced and elaborated the story line which Two Boys was showing. Unlike other operas, Two Boys involved itself in the production of a plot centered around crime but subconsciously highlighting the contrast between what is real and what is technological… or so Detective Anne Strawson thought.
Not being a tech enthusiast, Detective Strawson, like most traditional fellows such as Phelan and Benjamin, saw the contrast of the crime to be between reality and technology. She entered her case with the convinced notion that Brian, the accused 16 year-old role student, invented the whole fiction of the Internet and his chat history. As she became more aware of the uses of chatrooms and the power of the web, she herself began to lose sight of the contrast between her two opposite categories. The Internet had something real, something “live” about it which made her believe the story which at first she accused of fiction. Similarly, Two Boys looked to alleviate the contrast which many old-fashioned people have pointed to technology. The two sides were no longer reality and technology, but rather reality and imagination itself.
That is not to say that the opera advocated for technology to be melded along with reality, but instead to entertain the phenomenal chance that not everything in the Internet is unreal. Plenty of times through the opera, the production would show a chatroom and staged setting of an online conversation. As a pro-technology show, Two Boys searched to compare and contrast the two methods of projection and let the audience decide the validity of either. One perspective on these scenes could be the idea that a contrast is created between the two modes and, consequently, a depiction of real life and real chat are exposed. While another view could emphasize that the “live” factor of the story was given purely by the chatroom and the belief that technology and the Internet created complete characters on their own (which supports the finale of the story line). Either way, technology enhanced the debate in which Anne Strawson found herself trapped. Was technology believeable?
To some extent, as the plot unfolded in its climactic period, Two Boys encouraged the idea of technology being in fact real. Yet, as the ending unfolded and the reality behind the characters was revealed, technology became once again discredited. So should technology be believeable? Leave that to the audience, Two Boys would say.
– Keith, Blog B
Along with Winnie, I believe that we had to disassociate ourselves with the feelings we have now about technology to fully relate to this piece. We are so used to being submersed by technology we don’t have that “new” feeling when dealing with a computer or cell phone like the Detective did using the internet for the first time. I actually didn’t think of this before, so I’m glad Winnie brought it up so I could look at this in a new light.
Unlike some of my classmates, I went into Two Boys actually expecting to like it. I had never been to the Metropolitan Opera before, let alone ever heard real opera music, before Friday night. I love trying new things, and I figured that this was a perfect way to check ‘opera’ off of my to do list, and even better it was a contemporary opera. I knew nothing more than a simple plot and that the sets would be amazing, and I wasn’t disappointed.
The sets played on the “liveness” of the internet world. The internet is in fact a world of it’s own where people can come and hide behind their screen to become anything and anyone they want to be, which Detective Strawson soon found out. It seemed to have “liveness” through the sometimes vulgar and at times witty banter, and clear use of acronyms and chatroom language. We saw, throughout the entirety of the piece, through thin projection walls, people on their computers engaging in chat rooms. Even to the audience members it felt a little overwhelming and haunting-which I think was the point. In this case, the “liveness” of the work was successful, making us one with the idea of the show.
On the other hand, the “liveness” was somewhat interrupted during the projection of the chat screens. If we were looking at these chats through Detective Strawson eyes, which is what the show was suggesting than we wouldn’t have known the chatters emotions. Yeah, TYPING LIKE THIS can show emphasis and maybe I am “yelling” those words to you, or maybe I just TYPE LIKE THIS, because I have bad eye sight and typing with caps lock on makes the words easier to see (like how my uncle leaves me facebook messages). This is an instance where it is easily shown how it is almost impossible to understand the tone or emotion behind someones typing. So in this case, to increase the “liveness” maybe just the chat screen projections would have sufficed. Here I can agree with Auslander that reproduction can “rob” authenticity. To me, the singing of the chat room conversations had a touch of that non-authenticity.
Whether it felt “live” or not, this show still kept me on the edge of my seat. I liked the modernity of everything that was going on, and that I could easily draw conclusions about what I thought Muhly wanted us to get from this show. I thought the moving walls as sets that projected many different visuals throughout the piece was interesting as well; it was almost like another character that we had to watch to see what it said next. However, in the end I figured out that listening to two and a half hours of opera music just isn’t for me. I am accounting this opinion (and I guess I can thank society for this) solely on the fact that the material just seemed too much like a modern day movie plot than an opera. The operatic vocals paired with the obscene chatroom conversations and acronyms of the internet just seemed too contrasting to be put together.
Considering all of this, I am extremely happy that Two Boys by Nico Muhly was the first opera that I went to see (and hopefully not the last). I would recommend this show to anyone growing up this technological world to see the sometimes humorous side, and sometimes dangerous side that the internet has to offer.
-Jill Rodesk (Blog B)