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arts entertainmentPerforming Arts

'Sunken Garden' at the Winspear takes opera into new dimensions – literally

Created by Dutch composer/video artist/stage director Michel van der Aa, the Dallas Opera production is a multimedia exploration of life and something else.

Sunken Garden is opera for someone raised in the world of sci-fi films. Apart from having singers, sets and an orchestra in the pit, its high-tech video and 3-D effects certainly inhabit a world far from the Dallas Opera's usual fare.

But there it was Friday night at the Winspear Opera House: the Dallas Opera presenting the American premiere of Dutch composer/video artist/stage director Michel van der Aa's multimedia imagination of an intersection between life and, well, something else. Dramatizing a fantasy libretto by the English novelist David Mitchell, it's no Bohème or Carmen – nor should it be.

The vocal writing is actually quite natural – no big or particularly awkward leaps except for occasional dramatic emphasis – and the cast delivered notes and lines with impressive assurance. Perhaps because of accompaniments sometimes swelled with electronica, all the voices are amplified, but not excessively. (Deadening the acoustics a bit would have made the amplified voices less "bathroomy.")

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The accompaniments are mostly generic Euro-modern. Smearing dissonance, offbeat pulsings and poundings, and miscellaneous flutters and chatters only intermittently seem specific to words or actions.  But a couple episodes of pounding disco music did suit those scenes.

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Or with:

Katherine Manley (as Zenna Briggs) and Roderick Williams (as Toby Kramer) in the Dallas...
Katherine Manley (as Zenna Briggs) and Roderick Williams (as Toby Kramer) in the Dallas Opera production of Michel van der Aa's Sunken Garden at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas. (Jason Janik / Special Contributor)

Pick the most convoluted opera story you can remember: this is even more so. A filmmaker named Toby Kramer is working on a film about a man, Simon Vines, who has disappeared without a trace. With foundation funding delivered by Zenna Briggs, Toby becomes obsessed with the search – and with the young woman, Amber Jacquemain, who seems to have disappeared with Simon.

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Roderick Williams (as Toby Kramer) in front of video projections of Kate Miller-Heidke (as...
Roderick Williams (as Toby Kramer) in front of video projections of Kate Miller-Heidke (as Amber Jacquemain) during the Dallas Opera multi-media production of Michel van der Aa's Sunken Garden.(Jason Janik / Special Contributor)

Toby finally finds them in a mysterious 3-D garden – yes, you don 3-D glasses at this point – somehow created by Zenna Briggs. It's a parallel universe, with plants that seem to project beyond the proscenium, and a vertical pond that can spew water horizontally.

Jonathan McGovern (as Simon Vines), Miah Persson (as Iris Marinus), Roderick Williams (as...
Jonathan McGovern (as Simon Vines), Miah Persson (as Iris Marinus), Roderick Williams (as Toby Kramer) and Kate Miller-Heidke (as Amber Jacquemain) in the Dallas Opera's production of Michel van der Aa's Sunken Garden.(Jason Janik / Special Contributor)
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Zenna proves to be a sinister sorceress, luring humans here to gradually disembody them as fluttering moths. Along the way, we learn that Toby, Simon and Amber all are haunted by guilt, and there's some philosophizing about the inevitability of suffering.

Miah Persson (as Iris Marinus), left, and Katherine Manley (as Zenna Briggs) interact with...
Miah Persson (as Iris Marinus), left, and Katherine Manley (as Zenna Briggs) interact with the set's multimedia display during the Dallas Opera production of Michel van der Aa's Sunken Garden.(Jason Janik / Special Contributor)

Toby tries to rescue Simon and Amber, now in some intermediate state, but he himself barely escapes after the psychiatrist Iris Marinus confronts Zenna. But now – ask not why – Toby has been turned into a woman. Simon apparently escapes as himself, to go skydiving.

In a production first mounted five years ago by English National Opera, the high-res projections, including appearances by several speaking characters, are pretty amazing. Mix-and-match silvery frames and scrims, designed and brilliantly lighted by Theun Mosk, do their part to animate the stage.

Roderick Williams gives Toby a handsome baritone, balancing warmth and clarity. Jonathan McGovern's more lyric, tenorish baritone admirably inhabits the role of Simon.

Katherine Manley (Zenna) and Miah Persson (Iris) supply radiant operatic sopranos. Kate Miller-Heidke's light, straight-tone mezzo, more folk singer-ish, fits the elusive Amber. Standouts in the video speaking roles are Caroline Jay as Portia Jacquemain and Stephen Henry as Sadaqat Daastani.

The musical complexities are brilliantly and incisively coordinated by principal guest conductor Nicole Paiement.

Formerly classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell continues covering the beat as a freelance writer. Classical music coverage at The News is supported in part by a grant from the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. The News makes all editorial decisions.

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Plan your life

Repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday, March 17 at Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora. $19 to $449. 214-443-1000, dallasopera.org.