Bangkok Opera Presents Wagner's 'ring' With A Difference

[george]

BANGKOK: -- First staged in 1876 in Wagner's own theater in Bayreuth, Germany, "Der Ring des Nibelungen" remains opera's undisputed Everest. Not only is this 15-hour, four-part cycle a challenge for the hardiest of audiences, it is also an obligatory rite of passage for ambitious conductors and stage directors, which is one reason Europe alone has around 10 productions in the pipeline.

Thailand's decision to be the first Southeast Asian nation to present the work has surprised even the most ardent Wagnerians. The production, by the Bangkok Opera, has the official blessing of the composer's great-grandson Wolfgang, who inaugurated Bangkok's Wagner Society last year. But it is a huge undertaking for a country that has been producing Western opera for only five years. Will Wagner be raising a quizzical eye from beyond the grave?

To be performed over the next four years, this new "Ring" is being called the first to address a regional sensibility. Instead of Nietzsche, substitute Buddha: the cycle of destruction and rebirth is wrought not so much by power but by the Buddhist pitfalls of desire and attachment.

The design too embraces Thai motifs. A work still associated in many minds with horned helmets and mythical castles features gods as bejeweled classical dancers, entering a Valhalla that imitates the Bangkok skyline.

The impresario behind the project is Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul, a British-educated Thai conductor of vaulting ambitions who also dabbles in painting and filmmaking and has written 47 cult novels under the name S. P. Somtow. As a musician he is a refreshing polymath in an age of increasing specialization. Not content to conduct opera, he also produces, designs and directs it; when inspired, he'll also finish it, as he did with the last act of Puccini's uncompleted "Turandot," once the opera was out of copyright.

Such unbridled confidence comes with a privileged background. The great-nephew of Queen Indrasaksachi, the wife of Thailand's King Rama VI (who reigned from 1910 to 1925), Mr. Somtow was schooled at Eton and Cambridge. If not for his Asian features, one might think he hailed from fox-hunting Cotswold gentry. Relaxed and wearing a permanent smirk, he is unfailingly clever in conversation, combining schoolboy irreverence with an English combination of arrogance and self-deprecation.

Mr. Somtow's composing career began controversially. He is well versed in the European avant-garde from his Cambridge days, and his attempt to introduce the dissonant language of Stockhausen, Berio and Boulez to Bangkok in the 1970's mystified the Thai musical establishment.

In 1979 he moved to Los Angeles to begin a second career as a science-fiction writer. It took 20 years for him to return to musical composition and his native land. His "Madana," the first Western-style opera by a Thai composer, was commissioned by the Society of Preservation of Rama VI's Palace and based on a fairy tale by that great king. A matured if unrepentant Mr. Somtow had by then abandoned his serial techniques for a colorful late-Romantic impressionism.

The success of "Madana" marked his rehabilitation with the Thai public and led to a second, equally popular opera, "Mae Naak," in 2001, based on Thailand's best-known ghost story. Mr. Somtow is putting the finishing touches on an opera based on the Ramayana, the Sanskrit epic, which will have its premiere in November.

He says the decision to set up the Bangkok Opera in 2002 was based on the premise that while the Thai audience might not be ready for Western opera, "nothing important has ever happened in art when an audience has been ready for it." Pushed to describe his public, he cited three categories: high-society denizens with something to flaunt, a small group of expatriates and a smaller number of Thais who genuinely love opera. Given that the first category "tends to exclude the third," he said, the trick is to find the magic marketing formula to bring all three under the same roof.

Mr. Somtow took on Mozart's "Zauberflöte" and Britten's "Turn of the Screw" in 2003, increasing the yield the following year with "Aida," "Turandot" and "Don Giovanni." Inflating his vision are favorable local conditions, including a well-equipped 1,300-seat auditorium at the Thailand Cultural Center here and relatively cheap labor.

Singers too have been lured surprisingly easily, some through sheer curiosity, others cunningly ensnared en route to other musical engagements in Australia or Singapore. The Taiwanese soprano Jessica Chen sang the lead roles in "Turandot" and "Aida" and can now be considered a regular. Mr. Somtow can also claim the loyalty of the king's sister, Princess Galyani Vadhana, whose large entourage breaks tradition by paying for its own tickets.

Yet in spite of his lofty connections, financing his projects has not come easily. With no government support, Mr. Somtow largely lives on royalties, and to pay for his operas he is forced to go with cap in hand to his extended family, as well as to a handful of friendly companies that are official sponsors of his "Ring."

His work has also been dogged by the internecine rivalry of Bangkok's classical music scene. The city has three orchestras, more than most European capitals. The original Bangkok Symphony, created in 1999, was followed in 2002 by Mr. Somtow's Siam Philharmonic, which also plays for the Bangkok Opera. Sugree Charoensook, dean of music at Mahidol University, established the Thailand Philharmonic last year with a full season and has been poaching the best of Bangkok's players.

In spite of attempts by Mr. Somtow to get the groups to consolidate their rehearsal schedules, Mr. Charoensook's concerts tend to fall on the same dates as Mr. Somtow's, forcing Mr. Somtow to cast about for players, who in the case of this season's "Rheingold" are from the Opera and Ballet Theater in Hanoi.

To safeguard his projects against what he sees as others' efforts to undermine him, Mr. Somtow is aiming to turn Bangkok into the hub of classical music making in Southeast Asia, and he recently inaugurated the first regional opera conference to encourage collaboration. There is nothing new in this. Like-minded American opera companies regularly cut deals on co-productions.

Asia's nascent opera companies, on the other hand, nurse very differing philosophies. It is hard to imagine Singapore's Lyric Opera, driven by the diktats of marketing and arts councils, finding much in common with Mr. Somtow's high-minded hedonism.

"The only way to combat these silly turf wars is to expand the turf, so there is enough room for everyone," Mr. Somtow said. "Even if they think me mad, in the end what I do benefits everyone."

--IHT 2006-04-18

[skylar]

He also went to Patana as a child and his childhood nickname was Cookie.