Mulroney: The Opera is about to raise hackles in a most entertaining, musical way. It’s a bizarre satire that leaves little unsaid.
Rick Miller endured three hours of latex, lip synched to an actual opera singer and took the country’s pulse to become this towering Wagnerian anti-hero who was once our prime minister.
“I slip under the chin of someone who is almost universally vilified, to find a degree of nuance. I like him more now than I did before,” Miller said. “If anything this story is somewhat sympathetic.
“Look, I’ve spent several months reading and reviewing and watching and living this story. It’s a satire. He comes across as vain and arrogant, but he was vain and arrogant.”
The story begins in Mulroney’s hometown where the seeds of his political future were sown. “He was all doe-eyed about Baie Comeau (Quebec), which was a mill town, an awful place. He had this bright-eyed view of America, a big home away from home,” Miller said, adding “A lot of this film is about the delusions of power.”
Miller sees Mulroney’s legacy as clearly split and haunted by Pierre Trudeau.
“He is loved and loathed,” Miller said, “Trudeau has more scandals than Mulroney, but you can’t just look at the scandals. He won more seats that Trudeau ever won. I can hear him now, ‘Maybe there was that Trudeau movie on the CBC, but I got an opera!’”
