The distinguished director and former artistic director of the National Theatre, Yiannis Houvardas, returns to the National Opera. After the great success of Janacek’s “The Makropoulos Affair” in 2018, the leading director signs Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s emblematic opera “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany”, which will be staged from April 12 for six performances at the Stavros Hall Niarchos in SNFCC.
On the occasion of the upcoming premiere, Yiannis Houvardas talks to “ET” of Sunday and takes us on a journey to his own modern and charming town of Mahogany. The new production of the 20th century masterpiece is directed by Miltos Logiadis, while a host of great Greek actors participate.
Almost a hundred years following Weil and Brecht’s opera was first performed, how relevant is it still today?
In fact, nothing has changed since then. Capitalism flourishes through the exploitation of man by man (which today is largely done with the consent of the exploited waiting for the right opportunity to become an exploiter himself – “Mahogany” speaks of this as well), but also at the same time the opening of a vast field of “opportunities”, where the “American dream” lurks to grab in its nets those who envision a dominant position in the pyramid of the system.
How do you imagine the city of Mahogany?
If Mahogany were a real city, it would look like Las Vegas, especially at the time it was founded to serve the recreational, consumptive, and carnal needs of the male workers who had flocked to the Nevada desert to build the Hoover Dam—and, of course, , to expropriate for the benefit of the big contractors and the mafia whatever wealth they had accumulated with tremendous toil and sweat. Today, such cities are established in respective areas and with respective objectives, under the mantle of a “sustainable” ecological and environmental development. See e.g. the city The Line being built in the desert of Saudi Arabia. In our performance, the new city is built brick by brick in front of the spectators, only to be deconstructed once more in front of them later, first as a spiritual content and then as a material existence.
Tell us regarding the basics of your direction. Have you left the work in the era in which it was written or do you want to give it a timeless dimension?
Timeless. There are simultaneously the era in which the play is written, the present and the sense of an unspecified future era. A key source of inspiration for my collaborators and I was Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and the use of live video within a backdrop that is constantly changing by the performers enhances the fluidity of both the time and the viewer’s impressions. And this – the constant change of dynamics through the inherent contradictions of the system – has always been one of the main demands of Brecht’s epic theatre.
What modern city would you compare Mahogany City to?
Although, as I said earlier, various would-be “Mahogany” have sprung up throughout human history (for Brecht-Weil there is also a parallel with Aristophanes’ Nephelococcygia, but even cities of biblical times such as Sodom and Gomorrah ), no modern effort can match Mahogany as rendered in this masterful medley of genius music, delightful plot, and compelling atmosphere. The city, “like a vast net, intended to catch the edible birds” that fly to it, is a fantastic conception which, like all great works, derives its great appeal from the power of allegory.
Greek society, in today’s economic crisis, to what extent can it be paralleled with the city of profit and pleasures?
If we think regarding it, small or larger “Mahogany” are constantly being founded and destroyed before our eyes even today. Both in our globalized society and in our Greek microcosm. Large businesses, industries, invisible financial entities, small and medium-sized shops, foundations, ideological schemes, institutions, even homes. All of these are smaller and larger miniatures of Mahogany: In the “fatherly” protective framework of our capitalist system, all these – ultimately human – organizations are founded, flourished, declined, destroyed. Everyone always has grandiose goals. They all at some point reveal themselves to be artful traps for something else. And they all pass away, to give way to a new, brighter reincarnation. And life goes on.
How much does Weil’s amazing music contribute to the success, the timelessness of the work and its passage to the public?
I think Weil has written his most inspired music here. It goes without saying that following a performance of “Mahogany” the viewer-listener hums many of the motifs he has heard. And we are talking regarding a very structured musical universe, with many “hard” melodies, dark motifs, some almost atonal pieces (which, of course, also includes some famous, more “uplifting” motifs). However, this universe is so rich, so organically linked to Brecht’s libretto and so alive at every moment, that it involves the viewer from beginning to end in a meaningful and exciting interweaving.
Recently at the ELLS Alternative Stage we also saw Pasolini’s “Salo, 120 days in Sodom”, also with references to the fascism and capitalism of the Weimar Republic. Why do you think we keep coming back to these projects?
The social, ideological and political characteristics of that era along with an atmosphere of general decline are always lurking. We would all like to believe that we live in an ideal Democracy, without discrimination and with the protection of the weakest, where all people look smilingly towards a sunny future. Phew, it’s just an illusion. However much progress has been made, material and spiritual, however much the spiritual beacons of our time resist, humanity is always one step before the edge of the cliff. Where no one knows what it really hides in its depths.
“THE THEATER IS MY MAIN INSPIRATION AND OCCUPATION”
“The opera may be the most complete art form”
You are returning to Lyriki and Stavros Niarchos Hall six years following Janacek’s “Macropoulos Affair”. What is your own relationship with opera? What do you hear from this genre?
Since I was little, I listened to a lot of opera, mainly the more “easy to digest” – Verdi, Puccini, etc. The scenery, however, had not concerned me, because in the past opera performances were very conservative, museum-like I would say. In 1999, however, I was approached by the Gothenburg Opera for a collaboration and following much pressure (at that time I had sole responsibility for the Theater of the South in “Amore”) I agreed to stage Strauss’s “Electra” in Sweden. The reception of the performance was so positive that it forced me to revisit the “opera” question from the beginning and, thus, I began to direct works of the lyric repertoire, mainly abroad. Of course, the theater is for me always my main inspiration and creative occupation, but when proposals are made to me with works in which I find a field of deeper involvement (as here), I respond immediately, because under certain conditions the medium “opera” can be the more comprehensive art form.
What do you think is the relationship of the Greek public with the genre of opera?
In recent years, the Greek public has come much closer to opera – to musical theater in general, I believe. As the number of notable – younger and older – artists who deal with the genre increases, so will the audience that opera attracts multiply. And while this is happening, the perspective of the more “classic” in the reception of the audience will also expand once morest the more “bold” ideas of the creators, for which they may still have a reservation.
FOR THE NATIONAL THEATER:
“I don’t miss him the administration”
You were for years at the helm of the artistic direction of the National Theatre. Do you miss management?
Not at all. Along with the joy of managing a large organization and promoting to the public his own ideas regarding the artistic work and the organization of a state theater, an artistic director experiences many difficulties on a day-to-day level, difficulties that the State should have solved by weather -underfunding, lack of modern internal regulations, building infrastructure and technical equipment, understaffing and others. To be fair, of course, all of these can be recognized as perennial problems across the spectrum of public organizations, not just theatrical ones. So today I enjoy contributing as much as I can with my artistic powers, watching from an administratively safe distance as the younger generations struggle with their own powers once morest the eternal demons.
Info
“THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TOWN OF MAHAGONNY”
New production of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s iconic opera
DIRECTION: Yannis Houvardas
CONDUCTOR: Miltos Logiadis
REPRESENTATIONS: 12, 14, 19, 21, 23, 25 April 2024.
WHERE: Stavros Niarchos Hall of the National Opera – SNFCC. START TIME: 19.30 (Sunday: 18.30). Tickets: €10-€90 PRE-SALE: ELS Ticket Office (every day 9.00-21.00, tel. 2130885700), www.ticketservices.gr
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#leading #director #Yiannis #Houvardas #E.T
