Master-Pieces, A Chamber Opera
However, it’s not what we normally think of as an opera. And the performance, characterized by both moving strengths and disconcerting weaknesses, unfolded, awkwardly and interestingly … and then, at the end, quite powerfully … as a not-opera. Typically, operas’ drama lies in their plots; as audiences, when we’re moved, it’s because we’ve witnessed something dramatic. But in this performance of Kotik’s "Master-Pieces," the dynamic and moving intensity of the work’s conclusion lay in the fact that the work’s fundamental plotlessness – the libretto is essentially a series of poetic extractions from a 1936 lecture on aesthetics, ontology and existentialism – was transformed into a very personal drama in which the audience cannot avoid a shift from witness to participation. [more]
