There are those who look away; those who ignore it, and those who support it, to the point of embarrassment. In this city of New York, where we cross without looking at each other, the Mile-Long Opera was a visual, human experience, before being a musical spectacle: 1,000 choristers installed along the High Line, this disused railway line transformed since 2009 into a green gap to the delight of bobos and tourists in the former slaughterhouse area in southwest Manhattan.
The stroll begins at 7 p.m., between dog and wolf, when New Yorkers return home. Along the elevated path, we meet each chorister, face lit by a cap with a fluorescent visor. A few words are said or sung, written by the poets Anne Carson and Claudia Rankine. It is the spectator who decides the rhythm of the meetings, walking for ninety minutes along this mile (1.6 km) of rehabilitated warehouses, fake weeds and new towers. Strong relationship of looks, both anonymous and intimate, intense but interrupted – sometimes with relief – by the words, the song of the artist, or the continuation of the journey. The spectator is unique, he is “THE” public: at each meeting, the artist is there only for him, and everyone feels it, since no whisper, no discussion has come to disturb the show along this High Line usually so loud.
The choristers, recruited from the five districts of New York, are not all professional
During this show (free) entitled The Mile-Long Opera, a Biography of 7 O’clock (Opera on a Mile, a 7 P.M. Biography), directed by Elizabeth Diller and composed by David Lang, performed until October 8, the city rumor remembers to us: an ocean liner crosses on the river Hudson, the siren of an ambulance followed by a concert of horns makes the singing of a choir inaudible. The city is there, without knowing whether it is real or transformed into a work of art. In the apartments, at the windows, New Yorkers are cleaning their bay windows: they are actors. But the Armani advertisements, the fashion shows on a giant screen and in the distance the Empire State Building in blue white red colors are very real.
The choristers, recruited in the five districts of New York, are not all professional. Some sing sympathetically dissonant, a tuning fork puts the tones on time. The dialogues, born of interviews with New Yorkers about their daily life, seem innocuous, reflecting the diversity of urban life at dinner time: the arrival of the father, the absence of a grocer, the return rats in this gentrified space… Suddenly, the choristers slip away, hidden from the eyes of the spectators, and we hear the declaration of love coming up: “Amber, will you marry me? “ Alas, the world and the love affairs of yesterday in the slaughterhouse district have disappeared. “Everything is erased. Amber too “, we hear later. The show ends with a touch of humor – “I smile for a tip” –, as if this intimacy of relations was only false. Before being caught up again by the urban violence of New York: the eight-lane freeway on the banks of the Hudson, the deafening noise of helicopters and trains from Penn Station.
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