Angel’s Bone; music by Du Yun, libretto by Royce Vavrek, is an interesting concept.  It deals with human trafficking through the medium of two angels who fall to earth and find themselves in the hands of a couple; one of them a formerly trafficked person, who exploit them for sexual/commercial purposes.  It’s dramatically quite effective, well constructed and the libretto has a certain poetry to it.  It played at Harbourfront Theatre this last weekend in a co-pro by Sound the Alarm Music Theatre, Loose Tea Music Theatre and Array Music.

The problem is the score.  The vocal writing is OK if not exactly exciting but the instrumental writing (scored for violin, viola, cello, guitar, flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, tuba and percussion) is relentlessly, brutally atonal and massively heavy on percussion.  The percussion is so loud on occasions that it almost certainly would violate health and safety regulations in a rolling mill.  I found myself sitting with my fingers in my ears and wishing I’d brought proper ear protectors.  Much of the time the rest of the ensemble is drowned and despite Harbourfront Theatre being a pretty modest size space the singers had to be miked.

It’s a shame because there are some good performances and the production, directed by Alaina Viau and Alan Corbishley makes good use of the space.  There are also some really good projections (James Nesbitt and Cameron Fraser) which work well with the sets (Holly Meyer-Dymny) and costumes (Joline Rath).  Asitha Tennekoon and Alaina Viau (last minute replacement!) as the angels are convincingly sympathetic, as is Ryan McDonald as Victim A.  Alexander Dobson is suitably threatening as Mr. XE and Alyssa Nicole Samson gives the performance of the show with a well characterised and complex portrayal of Mrs. XE.  The chorus (I guess one can call them that) contains some very high class singers.

I really can’t comment on the orchestra because it’s so dominated by the percussion and conductor Joshua Slater didn’t seem to make any effort at any sort of balance.  The net effect of the relentless ear battering is that evaluation is difficult and enjoyment impossible.

This is really a bit of an oddball show.  I’m not sure it could make it’s mind up whether to be an opera or a propaganda piece.  There were lectures about human trafficking before and a Q&A after.  There were multiple trigger warnings largely about things (e.g. a fake gun that wasn’t even fired) that are routinely far more explicitly portrayed on Toronto stages and even a standby counsellor (an audiologist would have been more to the point).  Maybe if as much attention had been paid to basic things like making a piece that worked as musical theatre it would have been a better experience.

Photo credit: Dahlia Katz