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While student singers will understandably be keen to learn roles in ‘classical’ operas, there are advantages for them in performing new, unfamiliar works while in training. They can make such roles their own without regard to tradition or famous exponents. And the music colleges, with a huge amount of free labour at their disposal, may well consider it their duty to champion new opera when the larger houses can ill afford to take those risks. London owes a debt of thanks, therefore, to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for bringing Missy Mazzoli’s 2018 opera Proving Up to the Milton Court Theatre recently and there was no doubt that the young cast gave it their all and a lot more besides.
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Turning the intimate space of the Croft Hall, Hungerford into a world of magic, The Music Troupe performs Edward Lambert's In Five Years’ Time, a rich feast of poetry, symbolism and mime, where Lamberts music adds and draws out something extra from Federico García Lorca’s words
If you were looking for interesting music theatre, would you look in Hungerford? Perhaps you should, because from time to time Edward Lambert turns up with his company The Music Troupe at the Croft Hall, and turns the intimate space into a world of magic. Never more so than on March 1st when they presented their latest production In Five years Time. It’s based on a surrealist play by Federico García Lorca, whose complex dream-scape, once believed unstageable, Lambert has made into a beautiful precis of moonlit characters who inhabit a past, present and future at any moment.
If you were looking for interesting music theatre, would you look in Hungerford? Perhaps you should, because from time to time Edward Lambert turns up with his company The Music Troupe at the Croft Hall, and turns the intimate space into a world of magic. Never more so than on March 1st when they presented their latest production In Five years Time. It’s based on a surrealist play by Federico García Lorca, whose complex dream-scape, once believed unstageable, Lambert has made into a beautiful precis of moonlit characters who inhabit a past, present and future at any moment.
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I came across advertisements for Ed and Norman’s “The Rapture” on Audition Oracle not long after the vain attempts of Royal Opera House leadership to take a Palestinian flag from dancer Danni Perry at the curtain call of Verdi’s Il Trovatore. Frustrated that dancers, singers and a composer widely renowned for intentionally politically charged works were being forcibly rendered “apolitical” by the leaders of our industry, I couldn’t have come across a more worthy story to be told from our perspective as Westerners in Britain — the empire that brokered Zionist colonisation of Palestine.
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A thousand thanks to the steering committee of the fledgling UK Opera Association which opened its doors yesterday to an industry-wide consultation. The UK certainly needs a body that can advocate for opera in the face of ignorance and prejudice about what opera is and can be - and the funding drought that results from that.
Encouraging was the recognition that small companies are playing an important part in the ecosystem, not least in the opportunities they give to singers and creatives, but also in their often innovative approaches to the repertory as well as the places they perform in. I think it could be emphasised, too, that it is in such environments, rather than in the large companies, that most new works are being created, for a fresh repertory is essential if opera is to remain relevant and inclusive.
The online session was, as these events usually are, hijacked by a few loud voices grinding axes; thus, we immediately got a snapshot of the difficulties facing this new organisation, not only in the parlous state of the industry, but also in the marshalling of operatic egos and the pigeon-holing of people according to skin colour or gender. There seemed to be demands for sub-committees to increase representation - i.e. fragmentation - while the Association, surely, needs to bring voices together and to amplify the basic message: OPERA IS GREAT & OPERA IS UNIVERSAL. It can mean all things to all people through the language of music. For heaven’s sake, let’s hope the Association can pull us all together!
Encouraging was the recognition that small companies are playing an important part in the ecosystem, not least in the opportunities they give to singers and creatives, but also in their often innovative approaches to the repertory as well as the places they perform in. I think it could be emphasised, too, that it is in such environments, rather than in the large companies, that most new works are being created, for a fresh repertory is essential if opera is to remain relevant and inclusive.
The online session was, as these events usually are, hijacked by a few loud voices grinding axes; thus, we immediately got a snapshot of the difficulties facing this new organisation, not only in the parlous state of the industry, but also in the marshalling of operatic egos and the pigeon-holing of people according to skin colour or gender. There seemed to be demands for sub-committees to increase representation - i.e. fragmentation - while the Association, surely, needs to bring voices together and to amplify the basic message: OPERA IS GREAT & OPERA IS UNIVERSAL. It can mean all things to all people through the language of music. For heaven’s sake, let’s hope the Association can pull us all together!
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Have had a wonderful variety of operatic experiences recently and, while I’m always interested in the insights that different productions can bring to a work, I can’t help but reflect chiefly on the quality of the music-making and, even more, on how the composer problem-solved, setting text and underlining a drama by means of the singing voice. While not denying the cast and creatives their credit, nothing can redeem a bad score - whereas a good score can suffer if justice isn’t done.
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Programme booklet of first performances:
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Your Editorial "The Guardian view on touring opera: thwarted in its mission to bring music to the people" (10 November) misses a vital point. The trouble with 'opera' is that it’s obsessed with a small canon of works almost exclusively from the 18th and 19th centuries. Exceptions are few and far between, while contemporary works, with their inherent risk, are as rare as hen’s teeth. And so opera isn't just perceived as elitist and expensive (mistakenly) but also as 'uncool' and irrelevant, especially by the young.
Scaled-down versions of those classic favourites don't come anywhere near an authentic experience and touring them has limited effectiveness in growing audiences. Those of us further down the ladder attempting to mount new opera on a very small scale face a huge battle with conservative audiences, limited funding (no encouragement from the Arts Council there) and apathy from colleagues and influencers in the industry: all seem to be stuck in the operatic past. Without a sustained and sustainable renewal of the genre, however, the myth of opera's obsolescence will become a reality. So we need more lithe and nimble regional touring companies which can afford to mount new operas and thereby enhance cultural life more widely - and in more senses than one. It's perhaps the Royal Opera's Linbury Theatre, with its varied offerings of opera and dance, new and old, which could and should plant regional off-shoots. ENO should stay put.
www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/13/its-a-shame-that-opera-remains-stuck-in-the-past
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/10/the-guardian-view-on-touring-opera-thwarted-in-its-mission-to-bring-music-to-the-people?
Scaled-down versions of those classic favourites don't come anywhere near an authentic experience and touring them has limited effectiveness in growing audiences. Those of us further down the ladder attempting to mount new opera on a very small scale face a huge battle with conservative audiences, limited funding (no encouragement from the Arts Council there) and apathy from colleagues and influencers in the industry: all seem to be stuck in the operatic past. Without a sustained and sustainable renewal of the genre, however, the myth of opera's obsolescence will become a reality. So we need more lithe and nimble regional touring companies which can afford to mount new operas and thereby enhance cultural life more widely - and in more senses than one. It's perhaps the Royal Opera's Linbury Theatre, with its varied offerings of opera and dance, new and old, which could and should plant regional off-shoots. ENO should stay put.
www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/13/its-a-shame-that-opera-remains-stuck-in-the-past
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/10/the-guardian-view-on-touring-opera-thwarted-in-its-mission-to-bring-music-to-the-people?
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It seems to me, the year begins anew after the shortest day. However, with all the reflections on FB today, I’ll throw in my thoughts on a busy and peculiar year of musical composition. This time, 12 months ago, I was working on Swellfellow the Tyrant, an obscure political satire by Shelley which could hardly have turned out more topical and relevant in the light of the subsequent Tory machinations. Written for a local opera group which then failed to grasp the nettle, they thought it wasn’t popular enough to rustle up support. A foolish sentiment, in my opinion, as opera won’t thrive going forward unless the repertory is renewed with small-scale, entertaining but relatively economical works. An opportunity lost to work in the local community. And so, straight on to write The Burning Question for young Norman Welch which didn’t start off with the idea that the dead pope should be female, but that’s how it landed up. It went down pretty well at the Tete a Tete Opera Festival in the summer - lots of young people there - and, as I write, there are plans to revive it soon. Probably the best team effort I’ve enjoyed working on: it’s so satisfying (and flattering) to see a talented cast throw themselves into something you’ve written. Four months later, and another piece is finished: Masque of Vengeance, this time a Jacobean tragedy, a bloodbath in which most of the comparatively large cast are slaughtered by the end. I really must try and understand why, after Elizabeth’s death, this genre of revenge tragedy flourished. Wait! I meant Elizabeth I…! And in between we released the film of Last Party on Earth, which we shot live on a set and on location during lockdown. There aren’t many opera films other than relays of house performances, so thanks to Korina Kokali et al. for the inspiration. All things considered, some steps in the right direction this year: as one acorn said to another, we may be small but we’ll give it a go!
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Mark Wiggleworth’s suggestion (The Guardian, 10 Nov 2022) that English National Opera should seek a new state-of-the-art lyric theatre is spot on. The trouble with the recent debates over the future of English National Opera has much to do with the term ‘opera’ covering over 400 years of works that come in all forms, shapes and sizes. For much of that time, companies and the houses that accommodated them, were smaller and more intimate. Some of us mourned when Sadler’s Wells Opera moved to the Coliseum in 1968 in order to expand into the Wagner/Puccini/Richard Strauss repertory, for in large spaces something is lost when performing works of previous periods. While applauding ENO’s many great achievements since then, particularly as a showcase for U.S. composers, a retreat into a smaller, purpose-built venue in London could see it flourish as a complementary company to the Royal Opera rather than one competing with it. Smaller productions would be more suitable for touring, too. There is also an important point to be made about the future survival of opera: the repertory must be renewed with contemporary works in sufficient quantity to allow new creative talent to flourish. This is much more likely to happen in a small-scale environment.