Bollywood and Opera by pure coincidence

Went to Paris last weekend- 19 mar to 24 mar for Norooz. Eid Norooz mobarak to all who celebrate!!

Apart from a great family reunion and a lot of activity, my cousins Leyli, Farhad and I managed to make it to Padmavati, an opera written by Albert Roussel in 1923 and staged by none other than Sanjay Leela Bhansali. (This is the link to my title Bollywood and Opera by pure coincidence becasue the opera viewing far from planned; it just happened because everyone I know in Paris knows I love Hindi films!)

Hindi film lovers who appreciate art, decoration, lighting and color as opposed to script, storyline and logical narrative love Sanjay Leela Bhansali. I rushed to his Saawariya on opening day when I was in Delhi last November. So did half the rest of Delhi (the other half made it to Om Shanti Om, which opened on the same day!) Saawariya was absolutely gorgeous- sensual, touching but dreadfully long and storyless. I loved it for the visual feast and have returned to parts of the film several times since then, but as a whole, I couldn't wait for it to end.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is better known for a massive hit all Hindi film lovers know: Devdas. Yet another terribly dull, dreadfully pathetic melodrama starring Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai among a million others. But boy was it beautiful. Devdas contains some of the most beautiful scenes I have come across in a Hindi film. I often use these scenes as my 'advertisement' for friends who have never sat through a Hindi film but are curious to know what it looks like!

Much like the advertisement teasers for Saawariya, the song and dance scenes from Devdas are perfect teasers, but the film itself is to be sat through only by those who genuinely love Hindi films.

Now let me come to Padmavati. The opera was stunning. The whole thing felt like a film: dreamy lighting, lavish costumes, fantastic sets and decorations, massive cast of dancing men and women, 'beautiful' leading lady, a live elephant and a live tiger... the attention to detail was unbelievable!

The opera commenced with an offering made to Ganesha- much like the films often start with an image of a God, an offering and the hope for blessing and success- and a group of women dressed in brightly colored traditional clothes walked past the audience, down the aisles and onto the stage to make the offering of flower petals.

The storyline I discovered afterwards is based on a 13. century Hindu story. I acquired this bit of knowledge after watching the piece. Without this knowledge, I would let you know that it was a tragic storyline of unrequited one sided love of a Mogol leader for the wife of a Rajput Prince: familiar enough!

The part that is more interesting of course is the fact that the whole opera is not just Sanjay Leela Bhansali's staging, it is also Albert Roussel's amazing Orientalist view of exotic India. From this perspective the massive cast, the costumes, many group dances, the elephant and tiger take on a different dimension and meaning.

My cousin who is writing her PhD thesis about staging operas and the representation of the body in opera made the following comments: 1) she commented on the amazing compliment between very typical Western music and the Indian dancing- stage movement. She spent most of her time looking at the gestures, the body language, the movement of the hands. She was partly disappointed at the French casts Western body presence. 2) She noted that the dancers repeatedly created a totality- a holistic group as opposed to making an effort at maintaining or creating an individualistic presence on stage; which apparently is the norm in Western Opera.