The kalon of Kannagi

SINGAPORE — When he recites the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, composer John Sharpley’s hands are thrown in the air, his face contorted with animated emotion.

“When Eurydice died, Orpheus loved her so much that he made his way to Hades in the underworld by singing so beautifully. But there was a catch,” Sharpley’s eyes widened dramatically. “He wasn’t supposed to look back at Eurydice till they were on Earth’s plateau, but as they were making the journey, she called out to him and he yearned to see her so badly that he turned around. He lost her instantly.”

Sharpley sighed: “I know, it’s sad.”

The composer’s new production, Kannagi, is no different in its sentiment. A collaboration between Sharpley and Singapore librettist and poet Robert Yeo, it’s a theatrical hybrid of sorts combining elements of opera, drama and dance; and tells the story of a woman who loses her husband due to a miscarriage of justice at the courts of an ancient Tamil dynasty, Pandyan, and subsequently wreaks revenge on the kingdom. The production is a reboot of its 2009 outing and is a unique one: It features three different women playing the titular character — Akiko Otao, Bronwyn Gibson and Susan Yeung.

“One may be a more sensuous, erotic Kannagi, the other a level-headed reticent Kannagi, whereas the other may be a disturbed and confused Kannagi,” explained Sharpley, crediting the play’s director Chris Jacobs for discovering Kannagi’s dramatic potential.

“We spent eight or nine months processing, researching and writing it,” Sharpley said, adding that it was the element of physical theatre that drew him in. “Physical theatre is all about honesty and it’s in the body ... This goes back to Vsevolod Meyerhold in the 1900s, where he drew influences from kabuki, tai chi and qi gong. It’s not something that we see in Singapore, and (it) might even be the first time that this approach to theatre is used in opera here.”

Kannagi is derived from a South Indian epic poem, Silapathikaram, which blends love, infidelity, forgiveness, karma, retribution and sacrifice to create the most unexpected work of art that catapults the audience through Yeo’s words and Sharpley’s compositions.

“I was attracted to it because of two things: The first, universality. Having a story about love, revenge, redemption and transformation. It’s mythological and yet spiritual,” said Yeo, who admitted he was drawn to the poem’s feminist elements. “She’s submissive at first, and later on becomes the avenging wife and goddess who exacts justice on behalf of her wronged husband. I was impressed by it! You think that a woman in India, a patriarchal society, has to be submissive. But there is always another side.”

Encapsulating both sides of a person’s psyche, with inspiration stemming from Sharpley’s great love for Indian art and philosophy, he admitted that pacing the one-hour opera was one of the greatest difficulties he faced.

“How are you to create an arc from the beginning to end? And even after the work is done, how do the players take on the honesty of it, finding the characters and other ways to improve?” Sharpley said. “To me, those are never-ending questions, which I love. I also believe in finding the essence of it, purifying it. We’re always looking for a better way to do something. We live in a world of restriction, where it’s all part of the struggle.”

Nonetheless, given Singapore’s small opera-loving community, is Sharpley worried about the attendance?

“Well, you’re always worried!” he laughed. “I believe in the transformative power of theatre to provoke the audience. Catharsis — the Greeks had that. Operas started out mystical, mythological, spiritual and cathartic. And I see Kannagi as something like that.”

Kannagi runs from Oct 2 to 5, 8pm. at The Play Den, The Arts House. Tickets start from S$25 from bytes.sg.