By Sarah McMillin, Staff Writer
Senior Benjamin Nylander presented his composition of a one-act operetta named “Grey Area” on March 25 in Stretansky Concert Hall.
The act ran for 45 minutes and was divided into five parts: “Prelude,” “In a Hospital,” “On a Stage,” “The Parade” and “Epilogue.”
Multiple students were involved in the operetta: in the cast was seniors Benjamin Nause, Emma Mooradian, Lindsay Kraft, Augustus Black and Krista White, juniors Lena Costello, Charlotte Wood, Ali Hordeski and Vanessa Lloyd and sophomores Naomi Cohen and Kathleen Owens. Nylander also had a small orchestra on the side of the stage conducted by senior Emily Curto. Junior Briana Heinly, sophomore John Bentz and sophomore Dustin Dicely played violin, viola and cello, respectively. The orchestra was rounded out by Nylander himself on both the piano and organ.
Though operas are traditionally sung, that was not the case for Nylander’s work. Instead of singing, one of his main characters, Janus, plays the saxophone. The “Prelude” starts out with a solo by Mooradian in this role. and throughout the course of the operetta, Janus guides Lucy and The Singer through her unsung languages.
The replacement of singing with instruments was also used for two nurse characters, with clarinet and flute used for “talking.”
“When Lucy wakes up in the hospital, she is trying to understand, just as the audience is trying to understand, but they cannot communicate with her because they are speaking a different language than her,” Nylander said.
“It is something that nobody can understand, but in your subconscious, you kind of know,” Nylander continued.
Nylander also talked about his use of jazz in the second part of the performance, as jazz does not usually have a place in operettas, but Nylander created a whole scene with it.“Music is not just one style,” Nylander said. “Style is just a technique to get a point across.”
Nylander described his work as “existential” and emphasized the unreliability of the work for the audience.
“Just because you’re seeing something on stage, does not necessarily mean that its real,” Nylander said. “Just because a story seems like it is happening on stage, does not mean it is happening within the story. Everything you see can be a metaphor for something else.”