Walt Disney’s creative genius and his personal dark side are explored in “The Perfect American.” Commissioned in 2008 with music by Philip Glass, the opera has its U.S. premiere by Long Beach Opera; religious scholar Reza Aslan talks about his new CNN series, “Believer,” in which he’s focusing on fringe elements of certain religions; Mohsen Namjoo is reviving the pre-revolution rock music of his native Iran.
Walt Disney gets the Philip Glass opera treatment in 'The Perfect American'
Back in 2008, Philip Glass was commissioned to write music for a new opera about Walt Disney.
“The Perfect American” was intended for the New York City Opera, but so far it’s only been staged in Europe and Australia.
Now, it’s being mounted by the adventurous Long Beach Opera. The director is Kevin Newbury, who has a long list of credits directing opera and theater. Newbury and The Frame's John Horn spoke recently. They discussed the “The Perfect American,” the book it's based on, and the portrayal of the complicated character that was Walt Disney.
Interview Highlights:
On portraying Walt Disney and the difference between the stage adaptation and the book:
The book and the opera take a very well-rounded view of Disney and the man. I think the idea of genius and legacy and looking back on your life and what you leave behind is very universal. Even though the opera and [Peter Stephan Jung's] novel both touch on some of the darker sides of his personality, it's nothing that you don't see on the PBS American Experience documentary, which was really influential for me putting the show together. For me, it's really about imagination and wonder. And [about] someone who really changed the way that the world thinks about childhood and about storytelling and about animals and animation — everything that he did. Theme parks — the event of going somewhere with your family and experiencing another world. How did someone like that actually think and what were the influences on his life? For me it feels like a really balanced portrait of a complicated genius.
On finding similarities between Walt Disney and his own work as an opera director:
There's a scene near the end of the opera where Walt is awaiting cancer treatment with a young boy who has cancer. It's my favorite part of the whole show. The young boy asks him, How do you do two million Snow White drawings? How did you do all of that? He said, I didn't do all of that. I have people that I work with. She says — it's played by a woman — What exactly do you do? He says, I'm a curator. I bring people together, recognize the talents in people and try to bring that out. And that's exactly what I do as a director every day. Ultimately, the message of the piece is about magic and wonder and imagination, and getting back to that instinct of openness and play that we have as children.
On what Philip Glass' music contributes to the story:
What I love about Philip's music is that it's so emotional and it feels to me like the act of rumination and remembering and going over things in one's head. It's very phantasmagoric and it gets us into the head of Walt Disney as he approaches the end of his life. At his premature death of 66, how does he look back at all the things that influenced him? Philip's music just transcends time and space to me. He plays with different kinds of Americana themes that relate to Disney, but then he turns them on their head. He has wonderful long interludes, which give me and my design team and cast a chance to really explore the story, even beyond what's in the libretto. So through transitions and light cues, it's very magical and imaginative. And I just think that churning quality of Philip's music — it just feels like the act of remembering and grappling with history.
On how the librettist Rudy Wurlitzer helped contribute to the show's themes:
The approach to the opera is that it's very non-linear and phantasmagoric. It traverses time and space. It transcends just being a bio show and really gets under the skin of Disney and the many facets of his personality and legendary status.
On constructing original staging:
I always watch the previous productions. In this case, the production that was done in Madrid and London. I watched it once so I knew what they had done and then I tried to forget about it. It's responsible as a director to at least watch it once to make sure I don't inadvertently have the same idea and look like I'm copying. For us, it was a great springboard because what we wanted to do with the show was totally different. We set the entire thing in the hospital right before Walt's death. We have a lot of video design and it's all about re-appropriating things that would be in the hospital. So how do beds become the train that Walt rides around his backyard? How do we use pill bottles and hospital supplies to make a shadow of Cinderella's castle? Of course, we can't use any of the images from Mickey Mouse and Disney World. There's a few in the public domain, but most of them are off limits to us. So how do we get into the mind of a creative genius without using his own work? That is such a thrill. It's a wonderful opportunity for a director and a design team to figure out how to do that without breaking any copyright laws.
Reza Aslan explores fringe religions with 'Believer'
Reza Aslan loves to talk about religion. After all, he's a religious scholar who wrote a popular book about Jesus called "ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth." As an Iranian-American Muslim, he can be often found on TV talk shows explaining Islam to audiences who have little exposure to the religion. With his new CNN series, "Believer," Aslan explores more fringe religions.
“Believer” is modeled on those anthropological docu-series where a host goes to a distant land to live in an unexplored place, eat unfamiliar food or, in this case, participate in little-known religious rituals. In the premiere, Aslan went to India to meet the Aghori, a particular sect of Hinduism.
At one point in the episode a guru has him bathe in the polluted Ganges river, chew meat off a carcass and, as the scene progresses, Aslan calls over his producer and essentially asks if he can bail on the scene. Aslan tells The Frame's John Horn that the guru had said in his native tongue, "If you keep talking I will cut off your head." Aslan says, "So that's when I thought this might have been a mistake." Despite his discomfort with where that scene went, he explained to why he was so fascinated with the Aghori.
"It's a Hindu sect that rejects the very concepts of purity and pollution around which so much of what Hindu spirituality is based ... one way in which they prove that lack of belief in purity and pollution is by self-polluting. They will take part in theatrical displays of self-pollution as a way of shocking the system and convincing people that it does't matter what you eat [or] what you touch, these things can't separate you from God."
As an executive producer on the short-lived TV drama, "Of Gods & Prophets," Aslan has tried to bring religious stories to scripted TV. That only lasted two episodes. He tells The Frame that the HBO show "The Leftovers," for which he serves as a consulting producer, has had more success: "I think that dealing with religious themes is the way of dealing with religion."
With "Believer" Aslan finds that, while people of faith have gravitated to the show, it may be atheists who can get the most out of it: "I have to say that atheists probably have a better experience of the show because they don't have a horse in the race."
"Believer" airs Sunday nights at 10pm on CNN.
Mohsen Namjoo's music embraces the divide between Iran and the West
In the 1970s, Persian pop music was flourishing. But after Iran's 1979 revolution, everything changed.
The theocratic rule of Ayatollah Khomeini meant that all music with Western influence had to go.
Iranian musician Mohsen Namjoo is bringing back that sound. He grew up in the aftermath of the revolution listening in secret to Western rock music. He mastered traditional Persian music at Tehran University, but all the while he says he sought to find a blend of musical influences that represented his generation.
When you're doing these things together, it's going to show this paradox. My music becomes a point of paradox, but it's going to represent that I am, as a musician, living in a world of paradoxes.
Like a lot of Iranian artists and intellectuals, Namjoo was exiled from the country as a result of his art.
He arrived in the U.S. just six years ago, but has already had residencies at Stanford and Brown universities, teaching Persian traditional music. Namjoo is now free to combine traditional Persian music with drums, bass and electric guitar — the influences of his rebellious youth.
On March 12, UCLA and The Farhang Foundation will host a Nowruz festival to mark the Iranian New Year. As part of the celebration, Namjoo will perform at Royce Hall.