Puppet Opera is Anything but Wooden

Singing while dancing? The mere child's play of Broadway.

The captivating performers in at BAM this week scale altogether more impressive heights by skillfully manipulating delicate wooden puppets and navigating waist-deep waters without missing a lofty note of Igor Stravinsky’s libretti. Visionary Canadian director Robert Lepage – whose forays into opera can been seen on a larger scale at the Metropolitan Opera, where his staging of Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle is ongoing – doesn’t disappoint here, bringing his signature melding of innovative techniques and classic storytelling to this re-interpretation of traditional Vietnamese water puppet theater via Russian opera.

With a traditional staging, Stravinsky’s rustic themes would seem ludicrously outdated, and the animal narratives of the first half of the evening lack the grandeur and passion typically associated with opera. But the puppetry that accompanies the music – shadows cast first by contortions of performers before a screen, then by acrobats behind one – entertains so delightfully that the opera, in fact, becomes secondary.

There are certainly plenty of elements vying for attention. Costumed singers and simply clad puppeteers are scattered around the onstage lake (the orchestra pit, filled with 20,000 gallons of water) that forms the centerpiece of “The Nightingale,” the longest segment of the production that takes up the second half. On raised platforms either side of the lake, performers huddle between a Chinese lantern and the long, suspended screen, casting shadows that are remarkably convincing in their evocation of babies, flowers, doves, even old men drinking beer.

In “The Fox,” gymnastic figures leap and roll behind the screen with animal masks and feathery tails to animate the farmyard fable in athletic silhouette. Surtitles scrolling above the stage antics translate the Russian lyrics, and singers’ voices continue to soar and dip as energetically as the silhouetted forms.

The first half of the production delights with its elevation of shadow puppetry from frivolous childhood play into a complex artistic expression. The second half switches to a more ornate, exotic spectacle, with an elaborate set centered around the lake and breathtaking props like the Emperor’s veiled bed, which turns into a deathly skeleton (another sort of puppet) when singers unfurl bony arms and legs from its sides.

Olga Peretyatko’s voice floats and flutters alluringly in her role as the Nightingale, a creature that beguiles not only the court of the Emperor (sung in thrilling baritone by Ilya Bannik), but Death itself. Lothar Odinius as the Fisherman invests his part with an ethereal quality befitting the moonlit fantasy that he enters.

Johannes Debus, conducting his first production for the Canadian Opera Company, draws transporting music from his performers. But it is Lepage’s innovative investigation of marginal, elemental theatrical traditions and the fantastical stage design by Carl Fillion that inspire wonder.

“The Nightingale and Other Short Fables” continues its brief US premiere run with two more performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 3 p.m. Saturday at the Howard Gilman Opera House. Limited tickets remain; call 718-636-4100 to inquire.