Circus Days and Nights: Philip Glass takes opera to the big top for world premiere in Malmö

Do you believe in coincidences?  This opera is the result of one such happy coincidence: Tilde Björfors, director of the contemporary Circus Cirkör, based in the south of Sweden, had been responsible for premiering Philip Glass' opera Satyagraha in Stockholm in 2015. Tt was a great success with over 70 performances. Fast forward to November 2017 when Philip Glass visited Malmö and Björfors was invited to have dinner with him. When Glass found out that she was the director of a circus company, he told her he had bought the rights years ago to a collection of poems by the American poet Robert Lax (1915-2000) entitled Circus Days and Nights, where circus life is metaphorically compared to the cycle of life. Björfors gasped – and here is the astonishing coincidence – because she had been reading that very same collection of poems practically daily for the past four years! Needless to say, this opera, a co-production with Malmö Opera, is the product of that fateful encounter.

In Circus Days and Nights the real members of Circus Cirkör recreate the sequence of their daily lives: performing in a town, taking the tent and rigging down, packing it up, travelling to the next stop on the tour, relaxing for the evening. In the dawn hours of the next morning, the tent goes up again, the artists rehearse and then the next performance takes place. Lax waxed poetic about this lifestyle and had been fascinated by this ever-repeating cycle. For him, life in the circus meant concentrating on the essentials; everything superfluous is thrown off, until the essence is revealed.

David Henry Hwang and Björfors collaborated on the libretto. The story is told from the viewpoint of Robert Lax, who appears in three stages of his life: as a youngster (Methinee Wongtrakoon) fascinated by the circus; as a young man (crystal clear notes from soprano Elin Rombo) when he actually travels along with a circus; and as an old man (mellifluous bass-baritone Jakob Högström), reflecting philosophically on the cycle of life and the circus. One of them is always on stage singing a commentary on the goings-on of the troupe.

The circus is a family affair – the Cristianis – and most of the members are acrobats, with the oldest son Mogador being an aerial acrobat, Rastelli the juggler, La Louisa a master on the trapeze, a bearded lady, and a young lion tamer without a lion. There is no main protagonist, each having his/her moment of fame on stage. All are actual circus performers and, as such, their acrobatic acts are “for real”.

The score is unmistakable Glass. Through cheerful and upbeat syncopated rhythms, with a dash of melancholy spice, the seven-piece ensemble weaves its magic. Although the circus acts must, by definition, be highly precise and always the same, these acts are carried out by human beings and are therefore never mechanically cloned. And so, too, the music reflects different accents and inflections as it travels along the circular, ever repeating life cycle. The musicians – also in distinctive costumes – are placed on mobile trolleys, which are moved about onstage under the leadership of Minna Weurlander on the accordion.

Magdalena Åberg has created magical sets and costumes with a nod to the past. The iconic aesthetic of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has surely inspired the gown of the ringmaster's wife, with its black polka dots on a yellow background and pumpkin shape. The epoch-making Triadic Ballet of the early Bauhaus era in the 1920s, designed by the artist Oskar Schlemmer, with its primal colour blockings, may have been the godfather of many of the other stunning costumes. A word must be said about the tent and its rigging, since this inanimate object has a life, nay, a choreography of its own. The vast expanses of white material along with the intricate rigging and the circular catwalk, all under the control of Saar Rombout, is most impressive when it is taken down and put up again and contributes to the theme of the smallest of elements being as important to the overall physical and philosophical theme of the production.

Together, Glass and Björfors and the entire cast and crew have created a show that is far more than the sum of its parts and is a declaration of love to life and creativity.

This performance was reviewed from the Malmö Opera video stream