Stuart McRae, The Devil Inside, Music Theatre Wales, 3 February 2016

Peacock Theatre, London

 

Richard – Nicholas Sharratt

James – Ben McAteer
Old Man, Vagrant – Steven Page
Catherine – Rachel Kelly

Matthew Richardson (director)

Samal Blak (designs)
Ace McCarron (lighting)

Music Theatre Wales Ensemble

Michael Rafferty (conductor)

 

Images: Bill Cooper
Richard (Nicholas Sharratt) and James (Ben McAteer)

 

An excellent new opera, jointly commissioned and co-produced by Music Theatre Wales and Scottish Opera, The Devil Inside received its premiere at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow (23 January) and, following a visit to Edinburgh, continued its touring life in London. Not the least of the evening’s discoveries for me was the Peacock Theatre on Portugal Street: used by the LSE during the day, and turning properly theatrical at night. It is a splendid space, of which I hope to see more.

 

Richard and Catherine (Rachel Kelly)

Stuart McRae and his librettist, Louise Welsh, have produced a finely crafted opera in seven scenes, none overstaying its welcome, the whole more than the sum of its parts. ‘Inspired’ by Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Bottle Imp, we enter the sub-Faustian world of late capitalism and ‘property development’. That, however, is the setting rather than the substance; the bargain is the thing. James and Richard, lost in the mountains, meet an old man who offers them a way to become as rich as he is, if they buy a green bottle from him. Tempered in the flames of Hell, it contains an imp who will grant the owner his every wish; the catch is that, if you remain in possession of it when you die, you will go to Hell, and the only way of ridding yourself of it is to sell it on for less than you paid for it. And so, the story continues, James as rich as, well, a property developer, before selling it on to Richard, who remains haunted, consumed by it. Having met Catherine, who becomes his wife, James must regain the bottle when he learns of her terminal illness. The price has sunk so low that they must go abroad, where the currency is worth less. Eventually, and just in time, Richard, addicted to the bottle and its imp, takes it for one centime from Catherine, makes his last wish and dies. What, however, has Catherine wished for just before? If the Devil has made her pregnant, then...?

The libretto works as it should, as a libretto, rather than as a stand-alone piece. McRae clearly relished the opportunities it offered, for again, his music works as it should, as musical drama, not as stand-alone music. It is atmospheric, characterful, resourceful, and more. The smallish ensemble is full of intriguing solos and instrumental blends. Two harmonicas make for a frightening duet; interestingly (I only noticed this afterwards from the programme), they are played by the two violinists. Deep sounds – we are dealing, after all, with an opera forged in Hell – are often to the fore: alto flute, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, trombone. But so are fantastical, post-Britten glistenings, silver and gold, as befits the prize and the delusions it offers. The music for the bottle and its imp itself does not in any sense sound ‘like’ Wagner’s for the Tarnhelm, but the unnerving mixture of timbre and harmony produces what is perhaps not an entirely dissimilar effect. (Or maybe that was just my fancy!) It is perhaps inevitable that the sound of chamber opera in English brings to mind composers such as Britten and Birtwistle; I am not sure that I detected specific influence, although I am not sure that I did not, either. More importantly, the score sounds apposite, guides the action, indeed in many cases is the action (the interludes in particular, although not only then), and makes for a chilling night in the theatre.

 

James and the Old Man (Steven Page)

 

Michael Rafferty’s direction of the Music Theatre Wales Ensemble seemed wise and assured throughout, balancing musical and theatrical impulses to excellent effect, as did the playing of the instrumentalists themselves. All four members of the cast created their characters to equally fine effect; they sprang off the page into our mythical consciousness. Nicholas Sharratt’s Richard proved properly ambivalent, ultimately human and loving, yet not without weakness. Rachel Kelly’s Catherine seemed too good to be true, and in a sense was: was not her obsession with having a child as dangerous as the others’ obsession with the bottle and its imp? Ben McAteer made James’s sorry descent utterly credible from beginning to end. Steven Page’s Old Man and Vagrant (on the far-away island, briefly in possession of the bottle himself) made their theatrical point vividly and without histrionics. The resourceful production from Matthew Richardson and his team left nothing to be desired. So much can be done with intelligent direction, designs, and props, that attention was focused where it should be: upon what emerged as a new and important re-telling of an old, powerful tale.

For details of the production’s tour, visit the website of Music Theatre Wales.

King Priam, English Touring Opera, 13 February 2014

Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House

King Priam – Roderick Earle

Hecuba – Laure Meloy
Hector – Grant Doyle
Andromache – Camilla Roberts
Paris – Nicholas Sharratt
Helen – Niamh Kelly
Hermes – Adrian Dwyer
Achilles – Charne Rochford
Patroclus – Piotr Lempa
Old Man – Andrew Slater
Nurse – Clarissa Meek
Young Guard – Adam Tunnicliffe
Paris (boy) – Thomas Delgado-Little
Hunters – Stuart Haycock, Johnny Herford, Henry Manning

James Conway (director)

Anna Fleischle (designs)
Guy Hoare (lighting)

Orchestra of English Touring Opera

Chorus of English Touring Opera

Michael Rosewell (conductor)

 

 

Sir Michael Tippett’s music has suffered a fate typical, though by no means always the case, for composers following their deaths. However, there are signs that a period of relative neglect, despite the continued advocacy of musicians such as the late Sir Colin Davis, might now be giving way to a reassessment. For instance, the Wigmore Hall has been putting on a Tippett retrospective, laudable for far more than its courage in breaking away from the annual anniversary grind. I speak from a position of considerable ignorance myself, the only other Tippett opera I have seen in the theatre being The Midsummer Marriage (Royal Opera, 2005); my concert and recorded music exposure has not been particularly great either. I am delighted to report, though, that the ever-valiant English Touring Opera’s new staging of King Priam proved a triumphant success, making me keen to hear more, despite having been somewhat nonplussed by what I experienced as the blandness of The Midsummer Marriage, not to mention its problematical dramaturgy. (It seems more often than not to be audiences’ favourite Tippett opera, but I doubt that it will ever be mine.)

 

King Priam is perhaps, above all, an opera of great ambition, often fulfilled. The interiority of much of the dramatic conflict in some senses recalls A Child of Our Time, but whereas it proves, for some of us, near fatal in that oratorio, here, at least for the most part, it offers an alternative standpoint from which to consider the workings of fate and politics. Interestingly, director, James Conway views the material very differently, remarking in his programme note, ‘It has been commented that Priam is not an opera about war, but about choice. I am not so sure that this says what is needful. … Choice, it seems to me right now, is not a theme, any more than Fate is a theme. War and beauty are themes.’ Beauty, yes, I thought – but less so war, even in Conway’s own production. Perhaps that simply goes to show that staging and work alike offer the possibility for different understandings, irrespective to an extent of ‘intention’.

 

Certainly Tippett’s score, in Iain Farrington’s excellent reduced orchestration, came across with visceral power and beauty alike, for which great credit must go both to ETO’s orchestra and Michael Rosewell’s wise direction. There were a few occasions when ensemble faltered, but they were quickly rectified and frankly of marginal importance. More than once, I was put in mind of some of Henze’s roughly contemporary writing, for instance in Der Prinz von Homburg, though I suspect the similarity in timbres may arise more from shared Stravinskian roots as ‘influence’ in either direction. And yet, whilst some music might occasionally put one in mind of other composers, the dramatic use to which it is put seemed to me very much Tippett’s own – and certainly did in what seemed to me an estimably idiomatic performance. I was heartened after the event to read David Clarke’s New Grove article upon the composer, which said much the same thing with specific reference to Priam’s encounter with his second son, Paris, whom he had ordered slain as a baby and does not yet recognise:

 

The instantaneous – almost cinematic – shift of subject from Priam to Paris in the first bar of the example is articulated by the division of orchestral forces and the abrupt switch of pitch collections. Yet while the vertical conflation of tonic, dominant and subdominant triads of E-flat in the initial, defining sonority of Paris’s music could be seen as a further Stravinskian touch, the disposition behind it – to intensify the expressive potential of tonal resources rather than interpose an ironizing distance – is entirely Tippett’s.

 

Moreover, the clearly Brechtian reworking – Oliver Soden’s valuable note makes reference to Tippett’s recent encounter with the work of the Berliner Ensemble – s of the Iliad is again unmistakeably personal, and, one senses, a definite inspiration to Conway’s staging. In that connection, it is worth mentioning the sense of kinship I noted with Alexander Goehr’s Promised End, given its premiere by ETO (again with Conway directing). Anna Fleischle’s designs and Guy Hoare’s lighting assisted greatly not only with the screwing up of dramatic tension but also the differentiation of place between Troy and the Greek camp. A real sense was conveyed of Tippett’s mediation between Homer and the present. And the final scene brought a splendid reminiscence of – and indeed, Brechtian distancing from – Boris Godunov, again whether ‘intentional’ or otherwise.

 

Roderick Earle’s portrayal of the title role played no mean part in accomplishing that, of course. Dignified, touching, and with considerable power, this drew one in further and further as time went on: Tippett vanquishing Brecht, as it were. Nicholas Sharratt was likewise splendid as ‘playboy’ (Priam’s own term) Paris, narcissistic vainglory and compelling attraction two sides of the same coin. Thomas Delgado-Little did a truly excellent job as Paris’s younger self: one of the most self-assured and dramatically convincing performances I have seen from a boy treble. Grant Doyle offered a properly masculine foil as Hector: here, at least, I could sense what Conway said about war. Charne Rochford’s Achilles seemed strained (miscast?) earlier on, intonation wavering considerably, but improved greatly, the scene between him and Priam moving and fatally – in more than one sense – menacing. Laure Meloy and Camilla Roberts both gave sterling performances, as Hecuba and Andromache respectively, whilst Niamh Kelly succeeded to an excellent degree in portraying the strange, chilling emptiness of Helen. (The kiss between her and Priam certainly unsettled in the best way.) All other members of the cast impressed in one way or another. Perhaps especially notable were Adrian Dwyer’s properly mercurial (sorry!) Hermes, Andrew Slater’s stentorian Old Guard, Clarissa Week’s knowingly wise Nurse, and Adam Tunnicliffe’s earnest, finely-sung Young Guard. As in all the best company performances, the whole was greater, considerably greater, than the sum of the parts.

 

I was delighted to see Kasper Holten in the audience and trust that this will have made him consider the possibilities on the main stage as well as in the Linbury for Tippett and other post-war composers, be they British or not. As I wrote a little while ago, when sharing clips from a BBC documentary about the Hamburg premiere of Alexander Goehr’s Arden Must Die, made in those dim-and-distant days, inconceivable to most of us, when BBC television cared about such things: ‘Rolf Liebermann's words are especially instructive. As Hamburg Intendant, he felt it artistically necessary to commision an opera from Goehr; the composer's nationality was supremely irrelevant to him. Covent Garden, kindly take note! Liebermann commissioned no fewer than twenty-six operas during his Hamburg tenure; others include Henze's Der Prinz von Homburg and Penderecki's The Devils. Opera and art in general must never consign themselves to the museum. That way they will succeed only in signing their death warrants.’ We need to hear Henze, Goehr, Birtwistle, Zimmermann, Stockhausen, Dallapiccola, Nono, Lachenmann, Peter Maxwell Davies, Messiaen, Sciarrino, Pascal Dusapin, et al., et al.: the list is almost endless, and it is endless before we even begin to consider the fates of Gluck, Rameau, Haydn, Weber, and so many other composers from earlier eras; what we certainly do not need are any more Verdi, Donizetti, or Massenet, to name but three current, bizarre obsessions of the Royal Opera and many other companies. Three cheers, then, to ETO for both its enterprise and achievement!

 

ETO’ s current season also includes Paul Bunyan and The Magic Flute. Not every work will be performed in every venue, but the company will perform between now and the end of May in London, Truro, Poole, Wolverhampton, Snape, Cheltenham, Leicester, Sheffield, York, Canterbury, Norwich Crawley, Coventry, Exeter, Durham, Perth, and Cambridge. To read more about ETO and forthcoming performances, please click here.