8 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 3 March 2020

ARTS

Light:StAugustine’s,Hammersmith

F

or about a millennium, the his-

tory of western architecture

was almost indistinguishable

from the history of churches.

The church was the symbolic,

ritual and civic centre of the city. Per-

haps surprisingly, even Modernism, that

most seemingly secular of movements,

found itself shifting in response to some

of the 20th century’s great church build-

ings, from W.R. Lethaby’s thatched

concrete church in Brockhampton,

Herefordshire and Le Corbusier’s in

Ronchamp to Oscar Niemeyer’s Cathe-

dral of Brasília and Sigurd Lewerentz’s

Church of St Peter at Klippan in Sweden.

Even the Bauhaus manifesto featured an

expressionist church on its cover, “The

Cathedral of Socialism”.

It is safe to say that the church is today

nowhere near the heart of contempo-

rary urban culture. Rather, it has been

relegated to being an awkward outlier,

often a space now barely used, expen-

sive to maintain, a liability.

A small exhibition,Congregation,

organised by the Architecture Founda-

tion in the crypt of St Mary Magdalene

in Paddington, west London, explores

some of the fates that await churches

and other sacred spaces, some happy,

others simply depressing.

The best case is made by the venue

itself. St Mary Magdalene was a mission

church in what were then slums.

Designed by G.E. Street (architect of

London’s Royal Courts of Justice) in

1867, it is a robust gothic heap which has

recently been remade by architects Dow

Jones. Adding a social centre, café, nurs-

ery and classrooms, and opening up its

wonderfully theatrical crypt, they have

shown just what can be done to reposi-

tion a building (which at its nadir had a

congregation of eight) as a well-used,

open and welcoming centre for its com-

munity. This is still a mixed neighbour-

hood, with dense social housing,

denuded social facilities and depriva-

tion alongside some of London’s most

expensive real estate.

So how might you make an ornate and

prominent church, the most visible sym-

bol of a one-time colonialist Christian

society, a welcoming place for the mar-

ginalised? The answer, clear in every

detail, is by creating a modern addition,

stripped of the more obvious icono-

graphy but nevertheless imbued with its

own system of signs which mark it out

as open and embracing. And then by

seducing visitors with an architecture of

clarity, warmth and depth, and luring

them into a series of stunning restored

spaces, notably the charismatic crypt.

If the venue is perfect, the contents of

the exhibition are occasionally less so.

This is not the fault of the curators; it is a

realistic cross-section of the situation. In

some instances, churches have simply

been demolished to make way for

schools or housing, with a new, more

modest incarnation incorporated inside

the complex. These developments look

like a retreat into invisibility for what

was once the symbol of the city.

Roz Barr’s delicate designs for St

Augustine’s in Hammersmith subtly

reposition the church as a light, complex

public space. The curious pairing of min-

imalist John Pawson and maximalist Es

Devlin — known for her extravagant

stage designs — produced an elegantly

restrained design for St John at Hackney

(with Thomas Ford & Partners); other

schemes pack their sites with housing to

subsidise social facilities.

The standout new church is the Bela-

rusian Memorial Chapel in Finchley,

north London, exquisitely formed of

timber in the tradition of rural churches

in Belarus (Spheron Architects); it is

beautiful and a reminder that churches

can still become landmarks.

More striking are the designs for other

sacred sites. Waugh Thistleton’s Jewish

Cemetery in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and

Marks Barfield’s elaborate Central

Mosque in Cambridge have been

deservedly much commented on. But

there are more esoteric entries, too,

such as the New Temple Complex for

the White Eagle Lodge (a spiritual group

formed in the 1930s) by James Gorst

Architects and the New Community

Haveli on grounds donated to the Inter-

national Society for Krishna Conscious-

ness by ex-Beatle George Harrison.

Most esoteric of all, yet also strangely

sympathetic, is the Soulton Long Bar-

row, a neo-neolithic mound of stone and

earth designed to store the cremated

remains of bodies of any religion or

none. But if this is a story about how

sacred space can enrich everyday life,

perhaps Lynch Architects’ Garden of

Remembrance at Westminster Coro-

ner’s Court is the most compelling. A

small civic space punctuated by Edwin

Lutyens-influenced fountains and fea-

tures, it is a rare delight and a pointer to

how space can be imbued with the

sacred without being explicit or exclu-

sionary. Completed in 2018 to coincide

with the first anniversary of the Grenfell

Tower tragedy, it represents a moment

of relief from the pain around death.

There are endless issues to be

explored here, from whether a church

embedded in a banal new building can

ever be more than a glorified conference

room, to the status of the sacred in the

contemporary landscape or the cultur-

ally diverse modern city. It is not all

good news, but there is enough here,

most notably St Mary Magdalene itself,

to suggest that the future of the sacred in

the city is not entirely a question of the

preservation of beautiful empty spaces.

To March 7, architecturefoundation.org.uk

In praise of new sacred buildings

Moving:Lise

Davidsenand

JonasKaufmann

in‘Fidelio’

Bill Cooper

the saviour?) and the advocacy of a

strong cast is tested. Kaufmann was

announced as unwell, but a Kaufmann

at half throttle is better than none at all,

and he was welcome as always for his

musicality. Pappano, in charge of an

orchestra on heat, never let the intensity

sag and Egils Silins sang eloquently as a

Don Fernando who emerges from the

chorus as a spokesman for the con-

science of the 21st century.

There is a clear and strong message

inside this production struggling to get

out. It could yet come back in future

years as a powerful show, albeit too late

for Beethoven’s anniversary.

To March 17, roh.org.uk

Richard Fairman

In conceiving a political opera,

Beethoven took the art form into new

territory. It would be a generation

before anybody else followed. His heart-

felt cry for justice for political prisoners

resonates as powerfully now as it did in

his own time.

This year marks Beethoven’s 250th

anniversary andFideliois a key work in

arguing how relevant his music still is.

The Royal Opera has stepped forward to

present a new production, cast with

stars new and established, young Lise

Davidsen as Leonore and Jonas

Kaufmann as Florestan, and conducted

by music director Antonio Pappano.

The controversial element will be Tobias

Kratzer’s production, which asks the

important questions and challenges our

conscience on the same political issues

today. If only it did not get tangled in

some directorial meddling on the way.

In the role of Leonore, the woman who

heroically rescues her husband, we have

a symbol of hope for a better future, and

many opera-goers are probably feeling

the same way about Davidsen. Gifted

with a big voice that is beautiful and

expressive, she will surely be the out-

standing Leonore of the next genera-

tion. She already compares with the best

of the past, less daredevil than Anja

Silja, but more flexible and moving than

Birgit Nilsson.

In the first act, she steps into a prison

at the time of the French Revolution,

imagined here with oppressive gloom by

designer Rainer Sellmaier. In these

claustrophobic period interiors, Robin

Tritschler’s modest Jaquino courts the

light-voiced Marzelline of Amanda

Forsythe, neither of them helped by

the extra dialogue added by Kratzer

to flesh out their relationship.

Georg Zeppenfeld brings his keen bass

voice to a businesslike Rocco and an

intermittently potent impression is

made by Simon Neal’s Don Pizarro, a

monster swathed in silk elegance. We

know he is a rotter because he throttles

Marzelline’s pet canary.

From there the production makes a

huge leap in period and style. Kratzer

seesFidelioas an opera of two halves and

the rest is performed as if at a modern

concert, where the choir members look

on in increasing discomfort as the 19th-

century characters enter and play out

their drama before them. Should they

intervene? Can today’s bystanders take

up the flame of justice, like those before?

The concept is good, but the denoue-

ment is bungled (do we really need

Marzelline accidentally turning up as

Cry for freedom rings loud and clear

OPERA

Fidelio

Royal Opera House, London

aaaae

Max McGuinness

When playwrights write

abouttheir own families,

they tend to create thinly

veiled versions of the real

people. In this new work —

which it doesn’t seem quite

right to call a play — Lucas

Hnath has dispensed with

such artifice entirely.

The dialogue here consists

entirely of recorded inter-

views conducted with

Hnath’s mother Dana Hig-

ginbotham by fellow play-

wright Steve Cosson. Deirdre

O’Connell sits at the centre of

a dingy motel room for most

of Les Waters’s 75-minute

staging, which was originally

performed last year in Los

Angeles. But she doesn’t say

a word. Instead she lip-syncs

to Higginbotham’s voice

while occasionally consult-

ing a tattered manuscript.

What we hear is devastat-

ing. Two decades ago, Hig-

ginbotham was kidnapped

by a neo-Nazi ex-convict

named Jim, whom she had

counselled while working as

a chaplain in a psychiatric

hospital. For months, he

beat, tortured and raped

Higginbotham as they

moved around the US South.

Her attempts to seek police

protection were met with

grotesque unconcern. Hav-

ing eventually managed to

escape by hiding in a motel

room, she was left homeless

and destitute.

The story is told in loosely

connected fragments punc-

tuated by a series of haunting

beeps (the crackling, atmos-

pheric sound design is by

Mikhail Fiksel). That format

both creates a heightened

sense of authenticity

and conveys Higginbotham’s

struggle to comprehend

what she has experienced.

“I’m still putting everything

together,” as she puts it in a

characteristic piece of

understatement. Though the

details are unsurprisingly

a little hazy at times, Higgin-

botham’s account is nonethe-

less remarkably articulate

and peppered with quaint

idiosyncratic idioms, such as

her reference to buying

“a semblance of a dress” for

a job interview.

O’Connell performs this

uniquely challenging role

with intense discipline,

which supplies an eerie coun-

terpoint to the extraordinary

sense of moral chaos that

pervadesDana H. Higgin-

botham recounts early on

how she was sacked from her

job on religious grounds for

getting divorced. And yet no

one seems to have paid atten-

tion to the horrific crime

being perpetrated against her

in plain sight. As suggested

by a subtly powerful inter-

lude towards the end, epic

cruelty is permeated here by

generalised indifference.

To March 29

vineyardtheatre.org

THEATRE

Dana H.

Vineyard Theatre, New York

aaaae

‘Congregation’inthecryptof

StMaryMagdalene,Paddington

Thefutureofchurches

andotherplacesof

worshipisexploredina

Londonexhibition.

ByEdwinHeathcote

Challenging:

Deirdre

O’Connell

in‘DanaH.’

Carol Rosegg

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ft.com/arts

How might you make

an ornate church a

welcoming place for

the marginalised?