The Lost Libretto

What happens when a Western classical opera is performed by an Indian cast

Under the dim enchanted lights of an opera, people undergo a remarkable transformation. Folks who otherwise take the cue of a darkened cinema hall to seek solace in their cellphones or engage in lengthy conversations with their neighbours, tut and shush at any wayward noise. They admonish those who hum songs, reluctantly give way to those arriving late, cover their mouths when they yawn, and when a man begins to absentmindedly shake his leg, an old woman beside tells him, “You are disturbing me.”

The subject of this reverence is a man on stage dressed in a black buttoned-up shirt and pants. Contorting his face into a grimace, he sings, without a mike and over an orchestra, an unintelligible song that is apparently in English. Once he is done, the reverential silence in the audience erupts into applause, as the man, with an upturned palm in front of his stomach, bows for the audience in an exaggerated manner. What is unfolding on the stage on a rainy evening in Mumbai is a Western classical opera titled Dido & Aeneas, one made up entirely of an Indian cast. After a show in Mumbai, the troupe then travels to Goa and Delhi for performances. This, as its producers claim, is only the second time an opera has featured an all-Indian cast. The first such production, also put together by the same makers, was an opera last year meant for children in Mumbai, The Last Sweep.

For the next one hour, the tragic love story of a princess and a Trojan warrior holds the theatre rapt, from the mouths of one singer after another, pouring forth in voices of liquid gold. The words, however, because of the manner in which they are sung, are lost on the audience, but the people nod and smile as though they catch every phrase or nuance.

The groundwork for this opera was laid around five years ago when Patricia Rozario, one of the few Indians to achieve a mark in Western classical music, founded an institution, Giving Voice Society, to train Indian students in Western classical forms. Rozario, who grew up in the Mumbai suburb of Santacruz, is a well-known soprano who has sung in many international productions, with well-known composers like Arvo Pärt and Sir John Tavener writing for her.

Rozario has been awarded the Order of the British Empire and a fellowship by the Royal College of Music (RCM), London, where she currently happens to teach. From 2009 onwards, she began visiting Mumbai three times every year, along with her husband-pianist, Mark Troop, to teach students in the city Western classical music. The duo also travelled to Goa, Delhi and Bangalore to tutor students there. When they weren’t around, they would appoint senior students as stand-ins.

“Whenever I was in the city, everyone would ask, ‘When are you putting up an opera?’” Rozario says, “But I wanted to put it up when the students were ready.” Over the years, whenever Rozario held recitals in various Indian cities, she would always keep the following day open for those interested in singing. That way, she says, she would get to appraise the standard of singing in the country, and offer those she found had the aptitude a chance to train under her. “Everyone kept telling me how poor the interest and standard of Western classical music had become in cities like Mumbai,” Rozario recounts, “But it reminded me very much of my days in the 1970s, where students eagerly participated in music competitions organised by the local parishes. Perhaps the interest in Western classical had waned slightly. But the talent is very much there. I knew that with focused tutoring we could pull off an opera.”

Earlier in January this year, Dido & Aeneas started taking shape, as students who trained under her were selected from various parts of the country as the opera’s cast. They had to memorise and learn to sing the songs mostly in isolation, with Rozario holding the occasional Skype conversation to check a student’s progress. “I’m not going to use Skype ever again,” she says. “It appears everything is fine, but later when you meet a student, you realise that either their diction is faulty, or that they haven’t been able to get a hang of the archaic English language [in which the play is set].”

Three weeks before the performance, all cast members were flown down to Mumbai to commence rehearsals.

When the cast of the opera is neither rehearsing nor performing, they rest their voices. They speak in muffled tones, and at short lengths, and avoid all cold beverages, lest their voices suffer unnecessary strain. Some of them, in accordance with Rozario’s instructions, are also pursuing basic French and Italian: so that if and when they begin to sing operas in either language, they will have fewer difficulties in understanding the songs. Some are full-time musicians, while others are in the process of becoming so.

The male protagonist, a baritone from Santacruz, Oscar Castellino, is pursuing music at RCM, and has already started singing for various operas in England. “I agreed to this role [of Aeneas] because it is ambiguous,” he says, in the dark passageway that leads to NCPA’s Tata Theatre, the opera’s venue, “[He] is not an out-and-out good or bad guy, like the others. I can interpret [him] the way I want.” Untrained ears, however, are unlikely to be able to distinguish one interpretation from another.

Most others too are also studying music. Ramya Roy, a 22-year- old female mezzo-soprano who has the experience of various musical productions in Delhi, plays Dido. She will be studying music in France later this year. At 34, Rahul Bharadwaj, who plays the role of the sorcerer, is among the older singers. He worked for over eight years in a supply-chain management firm, a job that he eventually quit to study music at a college in the US. He then started working as a singer in church and opera choirs there, and expects to join Trinity College in London later this year to pursue music. Bharadwaj says, “Unlike, say, Hindustani music [which Bharadwaj trained in before taking up Western classical], where the audience is incidental to a music session, the opera is different. Here the intention is to perform to an audience. It is grand and opulent. It is everything you want a musical stage performance to be.”

The opera, composed by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell (1659–1695), is based on a story in Virgil’s epic Aeneid. It tells the tale of a queen, Dido of Carthage, who dies of a broken heart when her lover, Aeneas of Troy, abandons her. It was chosen by Rozario because it was written in English, and unlike other operas, which can go on for four hours or more, can be performed within just an hour. Rozario admits that the young voices of her singers may not be able to hold out longer.

There are no fat opera singers. There is no opulence or grandeur. The people who enter the great oak doors of the theatre aren’t dressed in tuxedos or gowns and don’t have opera lenses with them. It bears no sign of the elitist cultural preoccupation that it is often made out to be. Some are dressed in blazers and crisp formals, but there’s an equally large section in jeans and shorts.

Because most of the opera was funded by Rozario’s Giving Voice Society, production costs are kept to a bare minimum. All singers wear robes that can be turned inside out for another scene. They enact parts sitting on a wooden stool that can be disassembled and taken along to other shows, and apart from a robe that’s meant to denote the Queen’s status, she has very little regalia: she sings under a fluorescent umbrella that represents a canopy.

The singers simply sit on wooden stools and belt out the story in songs—as the audience chimes in with applause.

Whence could so much virtue spring?
What storms, what battles did he sing?
Anchises’ valour mixt with Venus’ charms
How soft in peace, and yet how fierce in arms!

The libretto—the text of the lyrics—of the opera when you read it later, as excerpted above, is beautiful in language and composition. Although it is written in English, and not in Italian (as is common), it could well be in the latter language. The manner in which it is sung makes it quite impossible to make out what is being said anyway.

Towards the end of the show, a wonder-struck man turns to his companion: “But…” he says, “but this is in English!” Perhaps he had assumed it would be in Italian. An old woman sitting next to him—who, for some unexplained reason, has been busy taking notes in a diary during the performance—reprimands him with an icy stare.

About The Author

Lhendup G Bhutia

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