OPERA
W
hatever your preconcep-
tions of opera, prepare to
shed them. Like a dam
bursting, a flood of new
operas appear this spring,
their premieres delayed by
Covid but now unleashed like uncouth
yobs into an art form that more often
resembles a genteel costume ball.
They have little in common except
one thing. As Fergus Sheil, the artistic
director of Irish National Opera, says
about The Scorched Earth Trilogy, the
project his company is involved in,
each project attempts to “turn the idea
of opera upside down and inside out”.
Co-produced with the Belfast collective
Dumbworld, the trilogy premiered last
weekend not in a theatre but on the
streets of Dublin. The action was
projected on to walls, rather than
unfolding on stage.
The style was anarchic and funny
and the subject matter was satirical and
bang up to date. Billed as “three street
art operas for the end of the world”,
they presented short, sharp, sardonic
commentaries on the climate crisis —
one of them, Trickle Down Economics,
depicting politicians peeing against a
wall in Davos, creating a toxic sea on
which the boats of refugees floated.
No, it wasn’t much like The Marriage
of Figaro. But this and the other pieces
being premiered this month might just
help to rescue opera from its present
tired state — a Groundhog Day repetition
of the same few titles, performed in
ever more strained ways — and give it a
younger audience and a new relevance.
Consider Beauty and the Seven Beasts,
which opens this week at the Brixton
Jamm, a laid-back indie-music venue
that is about as far removed from the
Royal Opera House socially and cultur-
ally as it’s possible to go. As the title
may suggest, the work, staged by a
young company called the Opera Story,
is a mashup of two old fables: Beauty
and the Beast and The Seven Deadly Sins.
The setting, however, is not old at all.
This is the world of online dating. The
opera consists of Beauty going on seven
dates, each exploring in some way
another “sin”. And to give the project
more artistic piquancy, each of the seven
episodes is written and composed by a
different composer/librettist team — all
of them in the early stages of theirher who sought to profit from her blind-
ness; and the psychological tussle over
whether or not she should accept a
treatment that might have cured her
(but, inevitably, also diminished her
“unique selling point”). We may come
away from The Paradis Files thinking
that, whether in the 18th or 21st centu-
ries, the perils of being a celebrity have
not changed much.
Also giving a contemporary twist to
an old tale is Raising Icarus, a chamber
opera by the composer Michael Zev
Gordon and librettist Stephen Plaice,
being premiered by Barber Opera at the
Birmingham Rep. The myth of the boy
who fatally flew too close to the sun,
using wings created by his father, is here
interpreted as a fable about parents who
push their children too hard to achieve
success — something perhaps even more
topical today than in ancient Greece.
It’s quite possible that (as was the case
for the vast majority of operas written
in the 18th and 19th centuries) some of
these new pieces will be flops and never
seen again. That would be sad. Even
sadder, however, would be present-day
composers and writers turning their
backs on a 400-year-old art form. Let’s
hope this bunch prove that opera still
has the capacity to say fresh and pro-
vocative things about the way we live
today, and in ways that entertain rather
than turn off the wider public. cBeauty and the Seven Beasts,
theoperastory.com; The Paradis Files,
graeae.org; Raising Icarus, barber.org.ukcareers. If that sounds a bit like a talent
contest where the audience will end up
making snap judgments about the
merit of each team, well, why not? Isn’t
that just what online dating is like?
(Asking for a friend, I should add.)
Another new opera being toured
widely this month aims to expand
opera’s reach in a very different direc-
tion — to encompass and celebrate
physical disability. The Paradis Files, byRichard Morrison says
opera needs a reboot— will bold new shows
about dating andcelebrity cut through?
SWIPE RIGHT — AND SING
the Belize-born British composer Errol-
lyn Wallen, brings together a range of
organisations, including the BBC Con-
cert Orchestra, the Curve venue in
Leicester and Graeae, the UK’s leading
disabled-led theatre company, to tell an
extraordinary true story.
Maria-Theresia von Paradis was a
musical superstar in 18th-century
Vienna. Some time before the age of
five she lost her eyesight, but her talent
as a composer, singer and pianist was
such that she performed in the highest
musical circles. Indeed, some evidence
suggests that Mozart wrote one of his
piano concertos for her. She also
helped to found one of the first schools
for blind children, and was clearly an
inspirational figure.
The opera, however — performed by
a cast that includes deaf, disabled,
neuro divergent and partially sighted
singers — will delve into the “darker
forces at work” in her life: those close toLet’s hope these prove
that opera still has the
capacity to say freshand provocative things
Bel canto Katherine Aitken rehearsing
Beauty and the Seven BeastsGlyndebourne Festival, Sussex
The suffragette Dame Ethel Smyth’s
Cornish psychodrama The Wreckers
is the headline event — the first big
staging of the opera in more than
80 years. May 21-Aug 28Buxton Festival, Derbyshire
There are more than 100 events at
this festival in the Peak District,
including Rossini’s Scottish drama,
La donna del lago. Jul 7-24Opera Holland Park, London W8
This year the auditorium will
showcase Mark Adamo’s 1998
operatic adaptation of Little Women.
May 31-Aug 28Longborough Festival Opera,
Gloucestershire
The theatre will host Wagner’s
Siegfried, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt
and Bizet’s Carmen. May 30-Aug 2FESTIVALS TO BOOK NOW
PETER TARRY3 April 2022 17