An opera by Ayu Utami on Kartini and 'Katini': Kill the West in me...

Most operas are known by the name of the musical composers: Monteverdi, Mozart, Wagner, Verdi to give just some of the big names. But last Sunday, 12 November we attended an opera in Utrecht, where the two musical composers and the other people who designed this musical theatre all were important, but the basic idea was formulated by Ayu Utami. She gives a portrait of two Indonesian women: the first is Kartini, known for her letters to Dutch citizens in Holland (and some in Batavia, as part of the colonial administration). Kartini  (1879-1904) wants to free herself and people around her from the restrictions imposed by Javanese male, patriarchal traditions. Her letters have remained well known but she died young, still part of the system she wanted to change.
The other personality is a contemporary poor Javanese lady, who was given the name Katini, because her father, illiterate could not write the name in a proper way and forgot the letter -r- and she became Katini. She was sent to Arabia to earn money for her family and became housemaid in a family where she was raped by the father, had a short affair with the son, but finally killed the mother in revenge. Therefore she was condemned to death.

On the picture above we see the two musical groups: right is the gamelan, left the string quartet. The gamelan played new music, but very fine in the tradition of the Javanese musical style. The string quartet played as minimal music. Many notes were in flagiolet, raw, very high and more like a cry than making beautiful notes as in classical music.
Below we see the two personalities. The little one on the left is Kartini, played by Bernedeta Astari, (b. Jakarta 1988) trained at the Utrecht conservatory as an opera singer and now working at various places in Europe in the operas of Mazart, Von Gluck and others. She has a wonderful voice, not as high as some Javanese singers in combination with gamelan, but strong and also beautiful in the low registers. Katini was played by Romy Roelofsen, not really a singer but more a theatre player. She has the dramatic story as a housemaid in an Arab family, until she killed the lady of the house and was condemned to death.
The text was mostly in English, with some Dutch, indonesian and Javanese. There was a screen where we could see the text very clear. Like the minimal music, also the text was in very short phrases: more like a deep cry than a real narrative and definitely not a philosophical discourse, but just short expressions. The text switched quickly between the two personalities who were developed simultaneously. Kartini: I was a victim of protection. Katini: a victim of exploitation.
Another confrontation is about the West: Kartini wrote to make friends in the West and to ask help from Western ladies to escape the confinement, part of her 'protection'.  Katini went to another 'West' because Mecca is (North-) West of Indonesia.
How must we understand the title of the opera? Kill the West in me? Does it mean that for these two ladies as for all Indonesians the fight against exploitation and restrictions must be done in Indonesia, by the people there? In het first book, Saman, Ayu followed the international 'liberation theology', but already in Larung and the great book Bilangan Fu the Indonesian spirituality is more important. Like we also see in the Islam Nusantara strategy of anti-Salafi Indonesian Muslims.

At some moments the players of the string  quartet, joined the gamelan to make their soft sounds here.
There is a moving closing episode when Katini hears in the morning the first call to prayer and begins her devotion, as preparation of the execution. We do not see more, not the dramatic episode of the killing of the Carmelite sisters as in the opera Le dialogue des Carmelites by Poulenc. Although the theme of this play is extremely dramatic, it is all performed in a quitecontrolled way, in line with the minimal space available in the small theatre of Kikker. It was the first performance, made special by the presence of Ayu Utami herself. Thank you, Ayu, for this rich text.