In short, when he “pauses,” his father realizes that something is wrong with the load; He had to stop the tragic death of his wife, but he did not, to make her sad forever. He wants to stop the irreversible act that cannot be done by his daughter alone.
If that problem does not feel completely compelling or available, it is because the girl has not developed properly. She announced that she was curious about her father’s new form, but it was hard to imagine anyone in her place feeling more shocked or angry. Instead, it appears only in different states of grief. (And this may be a very New York-centered adaptation, but how can this young woman live in an air-conditioned TriBeCa house in her garden?)
Maybe it’s for the better, so we never see her decision. Parallel stories reach the end of the parallel — the past, the night before the Father’s load, and the present, perhaps the night before the end. During the spectacular coup d’état, a white curtain hung over the audience. On it, the father and daughter are projected on a split screen. Although on opposite sides of the stage, various planes of existence, they appear to be sleeping on top of each other.
As they slide into sleep, we anchor the Father’s memory, a digitally translated dream – the green of the earth is very green, the blue of the sky is very blue. Everything we have heard is there – the stone, up to the touch, the lizard at rest. But the image blinks occasionally until the solution is reduced to smooth color fields, the default for software 3D graphics. Only the song of the wind and the birds will remain.
It’s a mysterious final scene, but it needs no answer. No matter what happens next, one is forced to live with the pain of loss. And no technology seems to be able to save us from that basic human experience.
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Until October 8 at the Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam; operaballet.nl.