Grunting, shrieking, climate-change fear and murder mystery: they all feature in the latest operas, but will we hum their tunes in a few decades time? Claire Jackson asks if we should be more open-minded.
The stage is almost completely white, a stark canvas upon which items appear and disappear, cacti are lowered from the ceiling to depict gardens and a small set of table and chairs becomes a family home. This is the backdrop to a taut, claustrophobic soundscape and the otherwise nurturing space at Snape Maltings’ Britten Studio in Suffolk feels heavy with intended discomfort.
The 11 scenes tell the harrowing tale of an unidentified man who is convicted of an unknown crime; his punishment is to be ignored for a year. Composer Emily Howard's vocal lines require the singers to grunt, shriek and explore the extremities of their range as the dystopian story is mirrored with an imaginative musical response. These are not arias that audience members will go away humming.
Anyone expecting lush orchestration, memorable melodies and lavish staging would have been disappointed. To See the Invisible is one of a clutch of new UK operas to hit theatres this year, many of which push the genre to its limits.
David Sawer’s The Skating Rink, which premiered at Garsington this summer and will be broadcast on Radio 3 on October 6, employs equally unfussy scenery. Stunt doubles slid effortlessly across the converted stage, which was divided into zones with minimalistic props, including an elongated sandpit that cleverly indicated the beach.
Tansy Davies’s 55-minute Cave, premiered at London Printworks as part of the Royal Opera house’s (ROH) summer season and for which tenor Mark Padmore earned rave reviews, used live electronics on some of the voices and featured on-stage rain.
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