Rocking Horse Winner: an opera that whispers its fairy tale hauntings
11 Nov 2023

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Less isn't more. It's less.

Or so sings the mother in Rocking Horse Winner: Ava, a woman obsessed with acquiring wealth in a vain, pun intended, attempt to assuage her terror of aging. So obsessed that she ignores her son, Paul, who only wants to be held and for her to smile. It is her loss because her son, who is a child in the body of an adult, can ride his rocking horse and when they achieve a certain groove, the horse renames itself after the horse that will win the next big derby. This information comes in very handy for Paul's Uncle Oscar and the manservant Bassett, who, thanks to that information, win big at the races . Paul also wins big, but insists that the source of the money be kept secret from his mother. But the money is never enough and both Ava, and the house itself, sing demands for more.

Contradicting Ava, is Tapestry Opera's skilfully spare and sensually spooky production of Rocking Horse Winner. Gareth Williams's score similarly does more with less. There are no arias to flaunt range, just tight musical motifs that propel the libretto and plot. Here too Anna Chatterton (Gertrude and Alice) does much with simple everyday language, extravagance is indicated by a housemaid's shocked interjection that Ava has bought "flowers in winter." The accompaniment is provided by a grand pianist (Stephane Mayer) and a string quartet, with a vocal chorus of four—Midori Marsh, Alex Hetherington, Anika Venkatesh, Korin Thomas-Smith—portraying the servants, the crowd at the races, the horses at the races, and the voices that haunt Paul. This is in no way to imply that the sonics are sparse, the spaces draw one in to emphasize the horror of the emotional distance between the characters. At first Lucia Cesaroni's role of Ava seems anti-diva as she delivers exposition over discordant chords. Her voice is luscious with an icy edge, and one aches to hear it break free and soar. Except that is not Ava. Instead, Cesaroni gets one word, elevated only a few notes higher, and her singing of "fuss" slices like an elegant thematic knife.

There is also very fine, deceptively simple, singing from Asitha Tennekoon as Paul. His main character traits are bafflement and innocence, yet his tone is rich and full of a wondering clarity. But it is the sotto voce voices that haunt the house, and Paul, that work with mysterious grace. Operating at a just audible level, they waft in and out of our conscious perception, teasing constantly at an unsettling gut level. It is deliciously subtle and adds immeasurably to the slow build that is this production. The musical theatre fan in me was taunted by snippets of melodies that my brain tried to assign to choruses or pop melodic fragments. I will take that as a personal failing: while a swelling soundtrack of swirling strings and singalong thundering voices would have driven the finale to a spectacular climax, the delicacy of this production creates something shattering and piercing. Sorry Ava, but less can be more.

At its heart, DH Lawrence's original short story "The Rocking Horse Winner," is a parable, a fairy tale, about the dangers of greed. Director Michael Hidetoshi Mori keeps the sinister innocence of a rocking horse, a toy that promises to gallop but never moves forward, with scrims and effects created by puppets or splashes of colour. There are eerie undertones, matched by, or inspired by, the discordant clusters of notes that support Ava's laments, that underline the horror elements that are the bleak beating heart of the best fairy tales. Paul's gift, or curse, is never explained, just exploited, and never even recognized by Ava. There is a physical dance of longing performed by Tennekoon that is responded to with incomprehension and regretful flinches. Oscar (Keith Klassen) and Bassett (Peter McGillivray) attempt camaraderie, but don't pretend to understand or offer emotional or physical support. Paul's simple quest, as in any fairy tale, will not end well, because there is never enough when "less isn't more" and your house is haunted.