Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 46

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Popular Culture Review

including Glass as keyboardist/conductor, Michael Riesman as musical director/
keyboardist, Jon Gibson on flute, bass flute, clarinet and soprano saxophone, and
the vocal performers Marie Mascari (Soprano), Alexandra Montano (Mezzo-So
prano), Richard E. Peck, Jr. (Tenor/Soprano/Alto Saxophone), Gregory Pumhagen
(Baritone), and Peter Stewart (Baritone) who make Monsters o f Grace such a com
pelling site of mediation between the real and the simulated, the actual and the
projected. Even with the creation of an entirely digital universe, what renders
Monsters o f Grace ineffably human is the element of chance and mortal frailty
that both intrinsically archaic film projection (an extension of the ancient magic
lantern device, or light thrown on a screen, shadow-play) and the incorporation of
live performance (both the keyboard and wind instrumentalists, but especially the
singers) bring to the work, making each performance individual and unique.
As the opening words of Jelaluddin Rumi’s libretto remind us.
Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place
Where everything is music . . .
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest.
And let the spirits fly in and out.
Even in an age driven by technology, and one that necessarily embraces that tech
nology as an extension of human vision, if we erase that which is intrinsically
mortal in our works, they cease to be a part of our experience, but rather markers
that stand outside the domain of humanistic commerce. In short, these are tricky
shoals to navigate. Monsters o f Grace succeeds because it uses digital imaging,
stereoscopic projection, and synthesized “samples” in the service of the performer,
who controls the spectacle she/he creates, but is never dominated by it. As each
vocalist performs her/his part, a keylight illuminates their faces, reminding us that
it is human agency that made this entire construct possible.
Conventional opera performance is equally a creature of artifice and syn
thetic creation; if a backdrop quivers and collapses, or a singer misses a note, the
illusion of perfection (which is what all performance strives for) is marred — but
this is part of the fabric of the creative act. Towards the end of Monsters o f Grace,
an enormous Chinese tea set is displayed in the space above the performers’ heads,
extending out into the audience space through the medium of 70mm stereoscopic
film projection. As we watch, the image begins to disintegrate into a series of lines
and pixels, as if acknowledging the ephemerality of its phantom existence.