an interesting double bill by the opera group at the royal opera house / linbury studio with "down by the greenwood side" by birtwistle and "into the little hill" by our very own king's college professor on composition, george benjamin, on wednesday night that gave us plenty to discuss the music, staging and directing.
birtwistles composition is interesting, and the juxtaposition of music and half sung, half spoken text creates a degree of suspension. but wheras it was lovely to have our friend julian in the production who gave a fine performance of doctor blood, we found the staging, directing and set, clumsy and conventional, and in our view the production couldn't find it's position, being gloomy, satirical, violent and tragic on one hand and commenting happily in a post-brechtian way on the other without ever bringing these elements together (or telling us why not either). so we really ended up watching doc blood's fab dance steps more than we should have and found his talents somewhat wasted.
the same unfortunate setting was used for the tale of the pied piper (rattenfänger von hameln) and the gloom and doom became even more boring with the orchestra moved far away from the audience and partly screened off by a large gauze. But the singing was suberb and the fantastic london sinfonietta gave a great performance (conducted by benjamin himself) that made us want to see the musicians even more. a great piece, intellectually stimulating and full of surprises, it sits high on our want list now to go over the music again and again.
see here for more qualified reviews:
the guardian @ opéra bastille
the guardian @ roh linbury studio
the independent @ roh linbury studio
the telegraph @ roh linbury studio
the telegraph @ pacific road arts centre
the new york times @ gerald w. lynch theater
and this very good blog entry at intermezzo with several pictures
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