At this moment, the first edition of Opér’actuel is taking place, in its biennial festival format. Faithful to the vision carried by the artistic director Marie-Annick Béliveau (READ THE INTERVIEW WITH HER ABOUT THE FESTIVAL), the first event invited the public to an intercultural meeting between spiritual India and artistic West.
Akasha, the Breath of the Universe is a production by soprano Kripa Nageshwar and her company Hamsa Lyric Creations, based in Longueuil, Québec. A chamber ensemble composed of a piano, a clarinet, a Carnatic violin (from South Indian tradition), a sarod, and a santoor accompanies the soprano who sings and recites Indian poems (by Tagore, among others) set to music by Colin Eatock, and lyrical pieces inspired by Indian culture. Among these, an excerpt from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers (O God Brahma), Poèmes hindous and Ragamalika by Maurice Delage, and an excerpt from a “Messiah” composed by the Canadian Amirthan Sothivannan.
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Eatock’s music acts as a binding agent between all these pieces which, with the exception of Bizet, blend quite well into the soft modern tonal language, tinged with echoes of Indian classical music. The musical result evokes something Britten could have produced if he had had a South Asian fibre. It is therefore quite accessible, and the arrangements for the small chamber orchestra with unusual combinations work well. They especially manage to avoid the impression of a somewhat cheesy New Age exoticism that often ends up colouring Western projects, especially those aimed at the general public, which wish to delve into Indian spirituality.
For Akasha is primarily a portrait of one of the fundamental aspects of Hindu religion. “Akasha” (in Sanskrit) refers to the ether or space element which, in South Asian culture, is associated with the fifth chakra (the throat), from which the voice emerges. It is also the primordial field from which all creation emerges and the invisible force that connects all beings.
It is a space where the souls of the deceased pass through on their journey towards the ultimate connection with the Universal Whole. In the cycle of births and rebirths, the soul that has not achieved sufficient detachment from superficial things passes through this space before being reborn in the earthly world, and starting the journey again. Those, rarer ones, who have reached the required level will pass through Akasha to attain universal unity and will not return.
Akasha, the opera, thus allows the audience to meet one of these souls (embodied by Kripa Nageshwar), who recounts its first emotional ecstasies in the face of the beauty of earthly life, its attractions, its joys, all the discoveries to be made. Then come the disappointments, the ups and downs of life, the anxieties. One of the quoted texts beautifully stated: joys are (too short) durations between sufferings. The journey of this soul in samsara (wandering) is expressed in Sanskrit, English, and French.
It should be noted that what was presented last night at the Paul-Buissonneau Hall of the Calixa-Lavallée Center (in the heart of Lafontaine Park in Montreal) is only a part of the final opera that will be fully created in 2027 in Toronto. I imagine that with a more elaborate staging and sets designed for the occasion, the work will take on even more substance.
If it is true that I would have liked the musical material to be more demanding, it remains that Akasha, the Breath of the universe, is a contemporary creation full of good intentions and frankly enjoyable, which knows how to surprise without strictly resorting to experimental techniques to justify its modernity.
