I spent the day in Toronto, having lunch at Java House and going to see an afternoon showing of the Canadian Opera Company‘s rendition of the Flying Dutchman at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. I picked up my opera buddy, Joey Coleman, a higher-ed blogger for the Globe and Mail, and culture critic with U of T’s The Newspaper. We were there as media, so we had to rush to pick up our tickets from the front.
The drive in was pleasant – it was a gorgeous day and I never tire of driving along the shore of Lake Ontario, gazing out across the great blue vastness which, on a clear day like today, seemed to disappear into the deep blue of a cloudless sky.
I also used the air conditioning for the first time in my new car, a Mercedes-Benz GLK, and was impressed by how “intelligent” the system was. It was silent, but quickly dehumidified the cabin and then effortlessly maintained a steady temperature. I am three months into owning the GLK and I still love it. A CUV that drives like a car. With artificial intelligence driving so many systems: wipers, lights, climate control. Lovely.
In Toronto, we have lunch on the patio at Java House on Queen St. W. What a pleasant place – friendly surroundings and a strangely comforting atmosphere. I was recently introduced to Java House by my dear friend Melonie Fullick, and I have been a fan ever since. The traditional spicy Thai soup was fab.
Then it was on to the Opera to experience the COC’s Flying Dutchman. Wow.
The performance was spectacular. Wagner always overwhelms me with his stormy romanticism and wild swells of emotional despair, but this performance was astonishing. It was so intense that it was actually painful toward the midway point, as I was drawn into the tapestry of loneliness, self-denial, greed and fateful despair that the performers wove around me.
I found myself leaning in and wringing my hands, so shaken was I by the realisation of what it would feel like to be cursed the way the Flying Dutchman was cursed – to be adrift, homeless, perpetually alone and longing. Shunned and spurned and out to sea – on the island of my ship: a dark, floating prison. I could run to the edge of the deck, lean over, feel the stinging brine of the angry sea, hear the calls of gulls and seabirds flying free above me, but always know that I am trapped on this tiny speck made of logs and sail-canvass, condemned to walk its tiny deck and look out at the vast desert of grey ocean around me. To glimpse land but never be able to lay anchor. The COC’s set and costumes in greys and blues, dark metallics and old bleached timbers, created this feeling perfectly.
And to think that this curse of drifting aimlessness could only be lifted by the unconditional love of another – a woman in the Dutchman’s case – declared before God, and true until death. To know that freedom depends on the sacrifice of another. What pain and sorrow that realisation would cause a noble-hearted and honourable man. A man like that would be conflicted that he could only find happiness through the empassioned sacrifice of another.
It is a terrifying thought, and yet it strikes so close to home for many of us in our contemporary world.
Although we live in a world of instant and constant connectivity, many of us suffer a profound and subtle loneliness. We have careers and houses and cars, but we feel adrift and alone. We seek profound connections with others, but are cursed by the media we used to communicate – texting, email, telephone – to a certain superficiality. Marshall McLuhan was right when told us that the medium is message. True human contact and understanding can only come in person. And many of us, like the Flying Dutchman, can ofte feel like dark ships, cursed to drift on the grey ocean of social media – rarely finding time and space to make real human connections with others.
And the COC’s production opened the floodgate to this rich world of emotional turmoil. Through its spare and modern set, which emphasized machinery, conformity. The set and costumes dehumanized the characters and built a bridge between the past and the present.
I was overwhelmed and unsettled. I felt electric and moody for hours after. Spectacular.
Very highly recommended.