Opera, Up Close and Personal: Kaspar Hauser: A Foundling's Opera

Downtown at The Flea Theatre, Kaspar Hauser: A Foundling’s Opera is reimagining both an old story and one of the world’s oldest forms of musical theatre. The story of Kaspar Hauser the wild child is an old one: Kaspar lived in the 19th century, and hypotheses of his origin and life have been adapted into art for almost as long. The theatrical form on which Kaspar Hauser: A Foundling’s Opera plays is even older: the operatic tradition dates back 400 years.

Many of opera’s defining characteristics were necessities of the time of its popularization. In the days before microphones, big-voiced singers with loud vibrato in combination with acoustic-rich concert halls were imperative for reaching a larger audience. Because the presence of people soaks up sound, there had to be a larger ratio of open air to people: thus, many opera houses have very high cavernous ceilings, and much of the audience is far away. And so, just like the singing style, design and acting choices were made to carry. Choices had to be evident even from the nosebleed seats. In most traditional opera, design and acting choices are grandiose and exaggerated. A performance at the Metropolitan Opera, for instance, will feature elaborate sets, costumes, and makeup, along with acting whose message can be understood from seven hundred feet away.

The Flea Theatre’s production of Kaspar Hauser: A Foundling’s Opera, by Elizabeth Swados and Erin Courtney, draws a lot from operatic tradition. However, The Flea’s downtown theatre space is very intimate; at any point, the actors are at most twenty feet away from the furthest audience member. It would be hard to find a space less like an opera house. And, sure enough, Kaspar Hauser branches off from traditional opera. The set is minimal: just a pair of balconies and a bare wooden floor. Both the music and the singing style are more reminiscent of modern musical theatre than opera. However, many aspects of operatic exaggeration are maintained. Though the Flea’s space is one in which physical and visual nuance would have no trouble reaching the audience, the costume, hair and makeup, along with the acting style, are kept very over the top. Every actor wears pale white makeup, which is highlighted by other dramatic touches: many of the girls wear bright-red lipstick, and in the middle of the play, Kaspar’s relative health is denoted by a bright red circle on each cheek. The hair of Kaspar and of the lower class characters is teased and messy, whereas the more upper-class characters, such as Lord Stanhope and Kaspar’s mother, have elaborate and well-kept hairstyles, a difference that would be noticeable even in a larger space. The costumes are also very bold: Kaspar’s mother wears all white, Lord Stanhope dresses entirely in Venetian red, and many members of the ensemble wear clothes in bright colors and patterns with great adornment.

But perhaps the most radical element of Kaspar Hauser is the effect of its operatic acting, exaggerated even further and seen up close. From the way Kaspar walks to the unchanging facial expression of his mother during her multiple laments, every acting choice is so over-the-top as to seem ridiculous. Even the energy of the ensemble is extremely high; every member of the cast sings with gusto and enthusiasm every minute they are onstage. Claudia La Rocco of The New York Times disparaged this choice in her review, saying: “By keeping the dial turned past high throughout the show, where the lines between good and evil are far too neatly drawn, Ms. Swados misses opportunities to develop any of her themes or arrive at any intriguing insights into human nature.” However, when viewed in historical context, the show’s incredibly high energy finds meaning. If Kaspar Hauser were staged in a traditional opera house, even those audience members sitting in the orchestra would not find the acting style too garish for its genre. But in the Flea’s space, the movements and facial expressions of the actors are conspicuous and even a little frightening. By playing on exaggerated opera traditions up close, the audience is made to feel slightly uncomfortable.

The same is true for the opera as a whole. The story of Kaspar Hauser has been adapted for theatre before, but never quite like this. By presenting Kaspar’s story in a very over-the-top manner, his life seems even more tragic. Just as the operatic staging makes the audience feel ill-at-ease, so does Swados’ adaptation of an old story. The people among which Kaspar Hauser is raised are celebrity obsessed, greedy, and manipulative, and at every turn prevent a decent life for Kaspar. Because of the intimacy of the space and the brazenness of the acting, it is impossible to ignore the awful quality of Kaspar’s life and demise. It is difficult to space out or look away from what is occurring onstage. The singers sing not into a wide open acoustic hall but into the audience’s ear, making the awful world of Kaspar Hauser inescapable.



Works cited:
Swados, Elizabeth and Courtney, Erin. Kaspar Hauser: A Foundling’s Opera. New York, The
Flea Theatre,
New York, 26 March 2009.
La Rocco, Claudia. “Fascination Endures of Diamond in the Rough.” New York Times, 4
March 2009.