Listen to the chirps of cicadas long enough, and you might begin to impose your own music onto theirs, infusing it with the mysterious rhythm of the day’s feelings. The sounds of nature may have nothing to do with our struggles, but for those in the midst of human conflict, they become a soundtrack to our thoughts and feelings, reflecting how we make the natural world part of our inner struggles.
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Paola Prestini’s first full-length opera at National Sawdust begins and ends with a chorus of cicadas; the rhythms of the natural world and of daily life guide it and frame seas of emotion buried beneath an otherwise peaceful exterior. Based on Carlos Reygadas’ film of the same name, Silent Light is a portrait of a Mennonite marriage at a breaking point. Johan, middle-aged and otherwise dutiful, has been having an affair with another woman, Marianne. He wants to stop, but his connection with Marianne is only slightly stronger than his guilt. His wife Esther knows it all and watches in quiet desperation and suppressed anger. Johan’s pull toward both women and the inevitable choice he feels he must make between them brings all three characters to surprising places. The opera ends with a mysterious resurrection that, instead of resolving the tension, restores and enshrines it.
The characters live in an isolated community, one whose emotional language is constrained,........