A Marriage of Opera and Dance in 'Svadba-Wedding'

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Two of Milwaukee’s most eligible performance companies are remarried in the Milwaukee premiere of the unusual one-act opera, Svadba-Wedding. Jill Anna Ponasik and Debra Loewen—artistic directors, respectively, of Milwaukee Opera Theatre and Wild Space Dance Company—credit the artistic rewards of their co-production of Missy Mazzoli’s Songs from the Uproar at the Broadway Theatre Center in 2016 as inspiration for another partnership. Both women love and have built strong careers on site-specific performances. They want to make that kind of show together now.

Ponasik suggested Serbian-Canadian composer Ana Sokolović’s virtuosic, 65-minute a capella work for six women. Svadba-Wedding premiered to acclaim in Toronto in 2011 and has gathered international attention. “I thought, what could be a better fit with Wild Space?” she said. “It’s just human bodies. No piano. No band. From my production point of view, all we need are six singers. It opens up anything.”

The characters are a bride-to-be, Milica, and her closest friends as they prepare for Milica’s wedding on the eve of this irrevocable rite of passage. “We wanted to do it at an actual wedding venue,” Loewen said. She knew that the inviting Great Hall of Best Place in Joseph Pabst’s historic brewery on Juneau Avenue was a popular spot for wedding parties. In fact, she’d been to several. Moreover, in 2012 she’d made a site-specific dance for Wild Space in the eight-story parking structure across the street. It was titled Milwaukee 360 because of the view at the top. She checked with the management and learned that although the hall is booked for weddings every weekend, it’s available on weeknights.

The Great Hall was added to the original Pabst complex in 1889. The beautiful entrance is between Ninth and Tenth streets on Juneau. The two-storied hall has enormous windows, variously designed chandeliers and a gorgeous wood floor. Natural lighting will serve the dusky early scenes of Svadba-Wedding. Audience members will be seated at roomy tables spread throughout the hall and will be free to walk about. The tables will be decorated as if for Milica’s wedding reception. The room’s long bar will operate throughout the performance. The action and atmosphere will suggest a rehearsal party.

The dancers will perform in every open space, between tables, at the bar and along the windowed walls. Captain Pabst’s well-preserved administrative office in a corner of the hall will become an open-to-view changing room for the dancers as they try on their wedding outfits. “The idea,” Loewen said, “is that these are girls together getting beautiful for the wedding, dressing and getting their hair done and preparing their best friend for this life-changing event. We’ll have flower girls putting finishing touches on the tables as people arrive and going, ‘Oh, you’re here early for the rehearsal event?’ Well, the bar is open.

“On the tables will be small mementos the dancers will pick up and use during the performance,” she continued. “They’re saying goodbye to the bride and a way to say it is, here’s this little picture of us when we were in the fifth grade, here’s a magic coin my grandmother gave me, here’s a bracelet that will bring you luck.”

The singers will also move as a group and arrange themselves in different formations, but they’re gestural abilities are restricted by the music’s difficulties. The libretto is in Serbian with many sound effects like “blblblblbl” and “wah-dju wah-dju,” tongue clicks and handclaps. Time signatures change constantly, notes are written many to a bar, phrases are often in counterpoint with speedy tempos. The singing will start and stop precisely, led by conductor Adam Qutaishat who’ll have his own floor plan to follow.

“There’s no other singing work that I could compare this to,” Ponasik said. “They’re using their voices for 65 minutes straight. No one gets a song off to change costume or get water or something. It’s a capella so they’re the only thing making sounds. You can only physically rehearse this so much. We’ve rehearsed on a kind of schedule we’ve never done before in MOT, over several months and with long gaps to let it sink in. The singers have to mind-meld. They have to learn it together. It can’t be done with a coach at home. They’re forming this little society and I think that has to happen.”

Translations of the libretto will be on each table, but Loewen and Ponasik don’t think we’ll need them. “It goes beyond language and specificity to a place that’s genuinely universal,” Ponasik said. “It’s about passages, juncture and change. It’s uniquely old and new at once.” “Everything we’re doing should reveal the meaning,” Loewen agreed. “What I like about the singing in this is that although they’re trained opera singers, they’re people first. You feel their intimacy and their care for one another.”

Performances are at 7:30 p.m., May 8-10 in the Great Hall at Best Place, 923 W. Juneau Ave. For tickets, call 800-838-3006 or visit wildspacedance.org.