FULL BLACK RECORDER (Na Sil-in) Seoul 2019 La Bella Opera
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Black Recorder or Song of the Dead Mother
- Composer: Na Sil-in)
- Libretto: Yoon Mi-hyeon Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Gangdong Arts Center Grand Theater Hangang, Seoul, South Korea
- Recorded: March 22, 2019
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Park Hyun-jin, Lee Min-jung, Kim Eun-mi, Jeong Si-yeong, Kim Soon-hee, Yeo Jeong-yoon, Choi Byeong-hyeok, Go Byeong-jun, Lee Yong, Yang Seok-jin, Kim Joong-il, Kim Ji-min
- Conductor: Na Sil-in
- Orchestra: Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra
- Chorus: Met Opera Chorus
- Choreographer: Jeong Seong-bok J Ballet Company
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Format: DVD
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, othersubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
The dead old people make a boat out of a cupboard and go to their desired destination, leading the play with stories that are not funny. The cast members become objects that make the audience feel a sense of kinship by reflecting the appearances of the old people living in reality, and the dead old people become mirrors that make them imagine their future selves.
Grandma “Yoo In-ja” died 30 years ago when her body was crushed by a cupboard during a typhoon. She heard that there should be a boat to the afterlife, so she broke the cupboard and made a boat and wandered with the dead old people.
“One day when a typhoon was blowing, there was an old woman crushed by a cupboard. She was carried out to the distant sea on the cupboard and closed her eyes.
After seeing Grandma Yoo In-ja, the dead old people tried to make a boat out of the cupboard and go to their desired destination…”
Grandpa “Byeon So-ho” is one of the dead old people in the play, and he died after living with dementia for 20 years. Even after death, he feels sorry for his children, but he portrays his life as a distraught old man with faint memories. If you read his lines, you can see the detailed depiction of families suffering from dementia, making you feel pain and regret in this day and age.
Also, the grandfather with a cast on his neck, “Mokgi-nam,” is a character who chose to take his own life because he thought he was a burden to his son in their difficult life, and he is a character who reflects the unfortunate reality of the recent increase in the suicide rate among the elderly.
“Jang-bun” is a grandmother who was abandoned by her child. While traveling in Indonesia, the son runs away to Korea after abandoning his mother. It is a modern-day Goryeojang story. She builds a ferry to find her son and complains, but the son says, “I should have thrown him further away so he wouldn’t come back,” and turns away from his mother.
The characters in the play all start to talk about how they have lived more unfair and pitiful lives. They meet a masked young man who takes care of the elderly who died alone while wandering, and the elderly ask the young man to decide whether to take the ferry. Each person tells the young man their story, and the young man who disposed of the ferry sends the elderly on a ferry to the afterlife, and the curtain falls.
The black recorder symbolizes the devoted love of symbolic parents. Like a recorder that makes sound only when its insides are hollowed out, it accurately depicts our parents living in the present age, making the audience think deeply.