The Opera House Fly

Even in these crazy days, where seemingly any and every movie is getting turned into a musical regardless if it’s a logical move or not (Legally Blonde?), the idea of transforming David Cronenberg’s horror masterpiece, The Fly, into an opera is, well, pretty crazy.

I could imagine a tongue-in-cheek musical in the vein of Little Shop of Horrors or the Evil Dead musical I’ve heard great things about. Maybe even a melodramatic Lloyd-Webber-style musical. But a serious opera? This was simply too insane for me to miss.

“All hail the new flesh!”

Considering that Predator is one of my favorite movies it should not come as much of a surprise that I’d never been to the opera before. So I have to admit I don’t feel very qualified to judge THE FLY as operatic art; I can merely judge it as a night of entertainment.

And how do I judge it as a night of entertainment? Did I already use the word “crazy?”I’d say one’s enjoyment of “The Fly” will depend on a combination of three factors: your opinion of opera, your disposable income, and your familiarity with Cronenberg’s film version.

Based on other reviews I’ve seen I’m guessing most opera aficionados won’t be sipping wine, listening to the album version of “The Fly” at home. While I found the whole experience fascinating, that’s likely cause I had nothing to compare it to. There’s a big difference between listening to Andrea Bocelli sing centuries-old opera standards in Italian while riding in my dad’s car and sitting through a full-length, English language modern opera created by dudes who’ve never made an opera before.

Then there’s the $ issue: the LA Opera isn’t cheap. But it’s not impossible. The cheapest of the cheap-seats are $20, which frankly isn’t that much more expensive than seeing a movie these days (and you can’t rent this opera later).

And I’ll level with ya: I had pretty badass seats. But even though “The Fly” is in English, you can’t understand 65% of what is being said because of the singing style. It’s not just me. They actually have a big screen with subtitles on it, which made the whole experience kinda like seeing a live foreign film. What really sucked was that the screen was up above the stage. Which meant that because of my badass seats I had to constantly crane my head up to read. I found myself wishing I’d been up in the nose-bleeds, able to see the text and the action at the same time.

I love Cronenberg’s The Fly. If you haven’t seen it, do so. Especially if you’re thinking of checking out the Opera. This probably doesn’t speak well of the opera itself, as a stand-alone piece of art, but a majority of the pleasure I gleaned from the experience was seeing how they pulled off various movie moments on stage.

That’s my objective take on things. Cause again, I don’t know opera from bonzai pruning. But.. while I most certainly enjoyed the experience, I can’t really say I thought it was a great opera. Howard Shore’s music was moody and sporadically excellent, but when compared with other classic operas you’ve heard before it ends up sounding simply like a film score. And while I thought the group numbers where excellent, the sections with our three leads seemed disconnected from the music to me; as though the actors had never heard the music before and were attempting to follow along.

Maybe all modern operas are like that. Maybe it’s just the style. I can’t say. But consider this Cronenberg quote from the Financial Times: “In a way there are three directors.” That’s referring to Shore and artistic director/conductor Placido Domingo. “It’s a strange separation of church and state. In a film I would never let anyone talk to my actors about the way they deliver their lines. Here it’s a division of labour and I accept that.” Hmm… curious, indeed.

I think maybe Cronenberg couldn’t fully connect with the material and style. The humorous parts of the opera work really well, and every now and then Cronenberg shows us moments that hint at the dark meta joke it maybe could have been. Like moments where our two leads belt out in full operatic glory “Pinky Swear!” and then perform the action. Or, what was the highlight of the whole show for me, the expansion of the character that Seth Brundle arm wrestles and maims in the dive bar, who has a fantastically weird solo about the grisly event. This is a perfect example of something that plays better if you’ve seen the movie and can fully understand how excellently silly expanding this character really is.

True, I can’t say I thought the Opera was great. But there is something almost perversely pleasurable about getting dressed up, sitting next to people in suits and classy even dresses, and watching a classically trained dude sing opera inside a gross rubber fly suit, suspended upside down from the ceiling.

Part of me was tempted to give the show a thumbs down just so I could use the classic line from the film: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Aren’t I clever? But honestly, if you’ve never been to the LA Opera, and have no immediate plans to go in the future, I would definitely recommend checking out the show – from the cheap-seats. Your not likely to see an opera quite like this at any other point.

I don’t think a baboon gets turned inside out in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”


The Fly Opera info is here.
LA Opera ticket/show time info is here.