Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith
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| Images: ROH/Stephen Cummiskey |
Gwen – Gweneth-Ann Rand
Jen – Lucy Hall
Suzy – Susanna Hurrell
Clare – Samantha Price
Emily – Rachael Lloyd
Lucy – Lucy Schaufer
Ted Huffman (director)
Hannah Clark (designs)
D.M. Wood (lighting)
Pierre Martin (video)
Sound Intermedia (sound design)
Sarah Fahie, Rc-Annie
(movement)
CHROMA
Richard Baker (conductor)
Philip Venables’s 4.48 Psychosis, based on Sarah Kane’s
final play, seems to have received a largely rapturous reception, at least from
opera critics, on its first outing in 2016. I missed it then, so was very
curious to catch it on its revival: one of the Royal Opera’s ventures outside
Covent Garden – perhaps aptly, in a theatre, the Hammersmith Lyric, known for
its spoken theatre rather than for opera. I seem to be somewhat out on a limb
here – only somewhat, since my impressions are far from uniformly negative –
but I am afraid I found myself, on the basis of a first encounter, more
troubled by doubts than some. (I should certainly not put it stronger than
that.) It is genuinely not my intent to find fault for the sake of it; I
suspect, moreover, that much may more be a matter of my own aesthetic
preconceptions and preoccupations. However, given so enthusiastic a reception,
there is perhaps room also for a moderately dissenting voice; it is not as if
anyone won over is going to have his or her mind changed by someone who failed
to ‘get it’.
Effort has certainly been
extended, by composer, production team, and performers alike, in transforming
this enigmatic, fragmentary play into an opera. As is often, although far from
always the case, that has involved an element of simplification. We have
characters and a more concrete setting, the latter still at a relative level of
abstraction and/or malleability. The same could be said of the former, barring
the protagonist, Gwen, and her psychiatrist (one presumes), Lucy, and even they
can come together in the mass of five voices so as to present something beyond,
or perhaps before, mere individuality. The use of ensemble often works well,
breaking down or not, as the case may be – not unlike what we see on stage. A
central narrative is much clearer: if, in the play, we know where everything is
heading, even without knowing that that was precisely where Kane’s life was
heading, temporal sequence is perhaps clearer, or at least less fragmentary,
which may or may not be the same thing.
There is genuine musico-theatrical
imagination, arguably innovation, too. Use of titles to present unspoken or
unsung thoughts and words is not unknown, often playing, as here, with mismatch
between what we see and what we hear. Here, however, it often seems an
especially apt response. If an oft-posed – too often, perhaps – question in
opera, is ‘Why are they singing?’ then here one might ask, ‘Why are they not
singing?’ Two percussionists in the ‘pit’ – actually above the stage, adding,
alongside some of the multifarious musical styles employed, to something of a
nightclub feel – correspond syllabically with each other, ‘their’ or rather the
‘characters’’ words ‘typed’ out below. Likewise the psychiatric test of
counting down in sevens makes its near-deadly appearance on that wall of
further action between instrumentalists and stage. There was certainly no
gainsaying the excellence of the musical performances either. Gweneth-Ann Rand
and Lucy Schaufer stood perhaps as first among equals, but this was a vocal
ensemble to be reckoned with by any standards. Likewise the players of CHROMA
under Richard Baker’s clearly expert direction proved a match for any new music
ensemble. Without knowing the work at all, there seemed little doubt that we
were hearing what we should, in duly incisive performances.
And yet, I had a nagging
suspicion, sometimes more than that, that it was performative and production
excellence that were pulling this together in the direction it wanted – or we
wanted it – to go. Was there actually that much more to the mélange of sections
of music, often perhaps on the verge of noise – a meaningful distinction or
not? – here? After all, a confused barrage of sounds may perhaps lend itself a
little too readily to depiction of or engagement in psychosis. What of the clichés
of Bach quotation and a modernised – post-modernised? – early music ‘lament’?
Perhaps, though, that is the point. I readily acknowledge that it might be. Is
not treating operatic music simply ‘as music’ almost always to miss the point?
As a scholar of Wagner and opera more generally, I can hardly deny that.
Likewise to make comparisons to original source material; again, as a scholar
and indeed devotee of… Perhaps, then, it was more of a matter of my not
necessarily having ‘liked’ the often popular musical styles, whether taped
(presumably) or live. Again, that may well be the, or at least a, point. It is
hardly much of a criticism to say ‘I did not like that.’
Even, at a more fundamental
level, my doubt as to how much of an opera this was, interest in the voice,
whether ‘intrinsic’ or ‘dramatic’, not always immediately apparent, might well
be answered with many historical and contemporary examples of that too being
the point. I could not help but think of Stravinsky’s typically artful twin
avowal and disavowal of participation in such debates: ‘The
Rake’s Progress seemed to have been created
for journalistic debates concerning: a) the historical validity of the
approach; and, b) the question whether I am guilty of imitation and pastiche.
If the Rake contains imitations,
however – of Mozart, as has been said – I will gladly allow the charge (given
the breadth of the Aristotelian word), if I may thereby release people from the
argument and bring them to the music.’
Was I involved in the drama, wherever that lay? Yes. If so, does it matter what
my ‘ideas’ of opera might be? Probably not. After all, there is, or at least
was, a long operatic tradition, both non-Wagnerian and non-Stravinskian, in which ‘the work’ takes less than
centre-stage, in which the performative, contingent element is stronger.
Perhaps Venables’s opera, then, lies closer to Rossini and Donizetti than to
those works with which I stand more at home, and therein lies my ‘problem’; perhaps
that problem is mine, and mine alone.
My next London opera visit will
be to hear George Benjamin’s new work, also from the Royal Opera. Who knows
what that will hold? I suspect, however, based upon his first two operas, that
it will prove more to my taste, perhaps to my understanding too.
