Gonna Fly Now

For the past year or so, I’ve been trying to get tickets to the LA Opera. And while you might assume that such an organization would be on the speed dial of a dapper and sophistcated fellow such as myself – you’re right to do so – I have to admit that I’m actually not much of an operaphile (ed. note: word may be made up.) Not sure why, really. Opera seems like a marriage of symphony and theater, both of which I love, but the combo of the two usually isn’t enough to keep me…you know…awake. Anyway, an article last year made me think all that was about to change. Turns out that an English-language operatic adaptation of David Cronenberg’s film THE FLY – directed by the man himself (Cronenberg, not the Fly) – has been in the works. And a year of phone calls later, I finally had my tickets.

The results of my evening of high flying (ha!) culture? Well, I got to spend an entire night staring at really cool sci-fi props on stage – always a plus. And they put the lead actor in a great prosthetic bodysuit that allowed him to crawl along the ceiling, which was pretty cool. Also, there was a robotic monkey. So hey – a lot of plusses. But at the same time, I kind of feel like my intial impressions of opera were totally reinforced. The lyrics were so compeltely mundane that it bordered on ridiculous. From here on in, whenever I see a clip of a self-important foreign langauge opera, I’ll know the ugly truth: the singers are belting out lyrics along the line of “Hey there, how’s it going? Me? Oh pretty good, I guess. I mean, I’ve got this whole ‘turning into a fly’ situation I’m dealing with but aside from that, I’m cool.”

Also, I kind of feel like the narrative was a wee bit compromised. Does anyone remember how at the end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT), Brundlefly – in a mad attempt to distill the fly DNA in his sytem by splicing his decaying body with that of his girlfriend and their unborn child – ends up being fused with one of his telpods? How awesome was THAT?! It was this fantasic metaphor for his corruption to the very core of his being by the God-like power of science. He flew too close to the Sun and ended up a hideous Fly monster – something I think all of us can relate to.

Not Brundlefly in the opera, however – he comes through at the other end of his murderous telportation attempt simply turned inside out, suffering the same fate as my beloved robotic monkey. Not only does that not make any sense from a narrative standpoint, it also completely misses the point. I guess that in the end, the experience was exactly how one of the members of Human Giant described it at their show the other night: “Seeing THE FLY opera was simultaneously the most and least cultured thing I have ever done in my life.”