Grimm And The Blue Crown Owl

On the weekend I saw the gothic opera Grimm And The Blue Crown Owl at Street Theatre. It was performed by Australian National University (ANU) opera students of which Petra is one and it was original and engaging.

The music and story were written by one of the students. It was refreshing to see something new in what I think of as an old-world art-form. It was also nice that it was sung in English which surely made the convoluted plot a bit more transparent. I expected to understand even more of it but forgot that sung dialogue is more difficult to understand than spoken word (hence all those amusing misunderstandings of pop music lyrics).

Someone reminded me that convoluted and inane story is a part of the opera tradition and one goes more for the music. And the music was awesome. I lack the terminology but the music was a modern if still tuneful brand of orchestral music performed by a very together chamber orchestra and sung by the keen and talented students. They both sung and acted well and even those lacking key roles put in some fantastic acting of movement and gesture (gotta love scurrying like a rat).

I enjoyed the costumes which utilized a combination of purpose-made items and existing clothing in a very economical and effective way. A ruffled shirt would provide the chest of an anthropomorphic owl while a black leather jacket would do the same thing for the wings of a bat. The mad scientist lab rats were almost Gigeresque with exposed skulls and spines. The wise storks (of which Petra was one) were elegant in kimonos and waving wing-like fans.

The audience was packed, and I suspect this had something to do with the fact that the story had a contemporary setting, while still resonating with fairy tale themes. We got a mix of tragedy and romance with a smattering of comic moments and it was all good value. We also went to an after-party which is always a fun thing to do.