Review | Melodrama reinvented as a TED Talk for the operatic stage, The Book of Water starring Samuel and Timothy West is a multimedia spectacle
- A stage work with drama, live music and video, The Book of Water, by Dutch composer Michel van der Aa, posits natural disasters as a chance for personal renewal
- Actor Samuel West provided live narration while his father, Timothy, appeared in a pre-recorded film; the Esmé Quartet contributed a torrent of live music
Follow nature, learn from water – this is the best way to capture the gist of The Book of Water, a complex stage work with drama, live music and film created by composer and director Michel van der Aa.
For all its intricately rendered mesh of live and recorded performances, The Book of Water is at heart a work with one big idea: that, far from being merely a threat, impending natural disasters are an opportunity for personal renewal and reconciliation.
Taken at face value, van der Aa’s linking of personal fate to environmental crisis may seem simplistic, even a tad predictable. But it certainly inspired yet another polished example of the Dutch artist’s trademark fusion of media.
The Book of Water is drawn from a novella by Swiss author Max Frisch and was turned into a spoken and sung script by van der Aa and dramaturge Madelon Koijman. It replaces the original setting with what looks like the Dutch countryside, threatened by incessant rain and raising sea levels.
Making its Asian premiere in Hong Kong, the performance began with projected images of a well-appointed but slightly decaying cottage sitting in splendid isolation. Inside was the widower Geiser, played by veteran British actor Timothy West (father of Samuel who, in a clever – and poignant – bit of casting, was the actor tasked with the live narration).
