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author = ["authors/jenna.md"]
categories = "Review"
date = 2020-06-01T04:00:00Z
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primary_image = "https://res.cloudinary.com/schmopera/image/upload/v1591065033/media/2020/06/sqBreakingtheWaves_zuh6qr.jpg"
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short_description = "short"
slug = "breaking-the-waves"
title = "Breaking the Waves"
youtube_url = ""

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It's by no means a fair criterion, but while our opera consumption is being done strictly online, there's an unexpected high bar for productions to clear; and even on first viewing (totally late to the party, I admit), _Breaking the Waves_ soars over that bar.

It's an unsympathetic kind of sorting hat, or maybe like the equivalent of a kid getting his first chance at swimming by being thrown into the pool. We're clutching at encore broadcasts and archival video recordings from the libraries of opera companies who are firmly in the business of creating live shows, and seeing how well they fare in an entirely different medium. They're pitted up against television and movie streaming platforms, which is a major David/Goliath situation.

But maybe part of the power of _Breaking the Waves_ is exactly that, its link to award-winning film. Lars von Trier's film won the Grand Prix at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, and caught the eye of operatic dynamic duo Royce Vavrek and Missy Mazzoli; their adaptation of this thoroughly amazing story also won awards (Best New Opera from the Music Critics Association of North America).

It's a fantastic story to turn into an opera, because it's full of all the stuff that happens to women in opera (in life, really): idealism, disillusionment, misogyny, faith, lost faith, taking the blame for _everything_, a deserved death. It's infuriating just to write, but it's the kind of rage that gives me energy, so here goes my take on this story:

Bess McNeill is head over heels for her new husband, Jan, and she's beyond excited to be with him. She wants to be a good woman, and that includes being perfectly desirable. They have a post-nuptial quickie, Jan is a bit of an asshole who laughs at how into it she gets, calls her "silly" and then points out the blood she got (_he got_, for fuck's sake) on her wedding dress. Fantastic, great start.

But Bess perseveres, they enjoy each other, she feels valued and good. Then, Jan has to go back to the oil rig to work, and Bess gets depressed and her already fragile mental health is wobbling (how dare she not be a robotic stone). On one particularly hot and heavy phone call, 10 days away from Jan's return home, they get each other all worked up before the line goes dead and they're both left horny and missing each other. Bess can't help herself (how dare she be horny), so she prays that Jan comes home sooner. The next day, Jan is injured at work and left paralyzed. He's home early, alright, and Bess blames herself for her horny praying (who else's fault would it be, really?).

So, obviously now they can't have sex; Jan feels emasculated and Bess feels angry and guilty. Jan tells her to sleep with other people, and then come back and tell him about it; it'll be their way of having a sex life. Bess does it, because she's madly in love with Jan and wants to give him what he wants. At first it's terrible, but then she finds her stride, and as she begins to enjoy her extramarital sex, Jan's health stabilizes. Everyone tells Bess to stop being such a slut, but she doesn't. She starts thinking God is telling her to do this, too. She ends up going aboard a commercial ship where she's predictably gang raped and mutilated. She dies. Jan has surgery and can walk again.

It's a story that kind of needs to be experienced to be understood. I spent a bit of time confused by how soon Jan focused on their sex life so soon after becoming paralyzed; the couple's priorities did seem a bit out of whack. And a reasonable person might find themselves screaming at the stage (screen?) 

* 
* in love young woman coming off as majorly naive in front of a bunch of Scottish dudes...yikes - xenophobia plus misogyny
* great music for Jan's entrance - smearing strings foreshadow
* we get a whiff of their relationship right away "late late late!"
* John Moore as Jan - unbelievably beautiful baritone
* Scottish accent a funny thing permeating the show - Marcus DeLoach's accent details stick out
* awkwardness right away, disenchantment - "silly little thing", shame over blood on dress
* the line about how all women must endure loneliness at some point - oof
* male chorus scene full of super thinly veiled innuendo - "drill deep, men" and "we dream oil" and "we drip oil, we shit oil, we breathe oil" and "suck up the crude" and "force it from the rock"
* money > desire > lust > women > sex jokes
* genius moments of writing, like how Missy does the "hello" repetition after their phone call
* she prays for him to come home, can't wait the 10 days, can't help herself from wishing he'd be home sooner - Eve moment, woman sets herself up for punishment because she admits to being horny/wanting something more than she has
* she actually is a bit fragile, struggles with mental health, believes God speaks through her when she prays

  ***
* great scene with Doctor (David Portillo)
* sort of strange, their obsession with their sex life during the obviously early time after the accident
* it's this great world where the people say out loud the thoughts that most people would have, even this soon after an accident
* all the ways a sex life can be so important to a couple; here, it's because it keeps up appearances in church/society, and because it makes each of them feel valued/valuable
* God says, prove that you love him and I won't let him die - so, do what he says and find someone else to have sex with, and he'll be spared; it starts to work, but only once she starts enjoying the sex
* women turn on her, because women do that
* this whole story is people telling Bess that they know what's best for her, better than she does
* then God stops answering - comes back, tells her to "finish the task"
* amazing presence of Bess' agency throughout the story, all these ways where she allows herself to do this, never admitting that she wants to , but that's definitely true (but it's other people's ideas, like Jan or God or Dodo)
* 