Dancing an Ode to Death.

Brian Macdonald's Requiem 9/11, with members of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Southam Hall, National Arts Centre Ottawa, Ontario, Canada September 5 & 7, 2002

Like most Canadians, 74-year-old choreographer and director Brian Macdonald was stunned by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. For Macdonald, it was the latest example of humankind's historic propensity for violence and evil. He soon found solace in Verdi's sprawling, emotionally extravagant 1874 Messa da Requiem and dreamed of staging the work both as an act of commemoration and as a universal statement of humanistic hope. In collaboration with Canadian impresario John Cripton, Macdonald brought his dream to fruition with two performances, using twenty members of Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet, a seventy-piece orchestra, four distinguished vocal soloists, and the greatly augmented chorus of Ottawa's Opera Lyra--seventy-four voices in all.

From the moment in early July when Macdonald and Cripton announced plans for what they provocatively titled Requiem 9/11, the project was immersed in controversy. Musical purists deplored the very notion of theatricalizing a composition so solemn in content and, they argued, complete in itself Others, offended perhaps by the title, hinted that the whole enterprise was opportunistic. Pinchas Zuckerman, music director of the National Arts Centre's resident orchestra, reputedly threatened to resign if NAC management offered the 2,000-seat opera house as a venue. Requiem 9/11's conductor, Mario Bernardi, was obliged to assemble a pickup orchestra that included only a handful of NAC players. The premiere thus took place against a turbulent, politicized backdrop, making it all the harder to judge purely as art.

Although an opera chorus is trained to move around, Macdonald oddly chose to keep his chorus static, dividing it into two sections, dimly visible behind scrim panels. The vocal soloists mostly performed from atop a central staircase and against a series of projected black-and-white images of ruins and human atrocities drawn from a variety of ages and cultures.

Macdonald's overall response to Verdi was essentially abstract and episodic, underlined by repeated costume changes, courtesy of designer Astrid Janson, and Harry Frehner's variably moody lighting plot. Macdonald's intent was clearly to amplify and occasionally comment on the emotional and dramatic content of the score. The only direct and late references to 9/11 were two images of the shattered World Trade Center, although during the "Lux Aeterna" the dancers had hauntingly searched the stage with flashlights, much as rescue teams must have scoured the rabble in New York.

As each section unfolded, the dancers assumed symbolic roles--religious supplicants, beaten warriors, burdened refugees, and angelic spiritual guides in voluminous white skirts. At the end of Verdi's long "Dies Irae," the dancers huddled and, as the "Offertorio" opened, dispersed to reveal a prone, bare-chested man. Soloist Johnny Wright's aching struggle to lift himself from the ground projected a powerful sense of existential hopelessness, soon countered by the arrival and support of a female comforter. For the almost jaunty "Sanctus," the dancers, in hip leisurewear, skipped and frolicked against the poignant image of a sculpture of dancing children amidst ruined buildings. For the culminating "Libera Mea," Macdonald offered an almost showy full-ensemble finale with the dancers in buoyant moods and wearing radiant expressions.

For the most part, Macdonald's choreography--all off pointe--is reminiscent of a blend of ballet and modern that first gained currency in the early 1960s. Sadly, it looks dated, routine, and predictable. There is far too much clasping of raised hands, falling on knees, and arching of backs. The overall stage pictures Macdonald creates are attractive enough in broad terms but, while they in no way trivialize the score, they do little to enhance its impact. Perhaps, after all, Verdi's music says all that needs to be said.