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| Banished, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance 2016 (Copyright) Lidia Crisafulli |
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Jun 29 2016
Star rating:
The story of the first female convicts transported to Australia showcases a fine young ensemble in this stunning new opera
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| Banished, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance 2016 (Copyright) Lidia Crisafulli |
Stephen McNeff has had it in his mind to write an opera based on Steve Gooch's play for some time; he first bought a copy of the play 30 years ago. But it was only when doing a project with students from Trinity Laban in 2013 that the idea really germinated. The project involved the students working on the records about the first women transported to Australia in the 18th century, records which are held at the National Maritime Museum just over the road from the college. The sense of identification between the young students and the young women transported, the feeling that in another era 'this could have been me' helped to project the opera into reality. It has a large number of roles for women (some six female soloists, and a chorus of twelve women with four male soloists), one of the reasons why McNeff was interested in the piece. He points out that, unlike the majority of major roles written for women, the work has a positive end.
Perhaps the closest parallel for McNeff and Fuchs' new opera is Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, both concentrate on a group of women in harrowing circumstances, and we watch as they draw together with strength. Both operas are written in a sequence of small scenes, with an emphasis on group dynamic. But unlike Poulenc's opera, the women do not die at the end and McNeff and Fuchs have deliberately made the climax, the arrival in Sydney, uplifting and transformative.
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| Banished, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance 2016 (Copyright) Lidia Crisafulli |
Trinity Laban has no specialist post-graduate opera school so that all of the singers were undergraduates or post-graduates. McNeff wrote with these mainly young voices in mind, solos were relatively short and the imaginative orchestration was not designed to tax voices (full strings but only five woodwind and single horn, trumpet and trombone, plus piano accordion and percussion). The music incorporated a number of folk-songs and traditional songs from the period, woven into the textures. And it was these textures which really struck a chord when listening to the opera. Writing for an ensemble of female voices, McNeff had created a series of striking and fascinating textures, whether evocative and moving, or strident and angry, the writing involved not just singing but humming, shouting and speaking rhythmically. The orchestral writing was similarly enticing, with some lovely moments for solo instruments like the piano accordion.
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| Banished, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance 2016 (Copyright) Lidia Crisafulli |
The sense of a vibrant ensemble from the young singers was palpable, each of the women has a very real sense of individual personality and all came together in a striking sense of community. The ensemble moments, from the touching to the angry, were the most striking parts of the evening. All of the female soloists had a small solo moment so that we found out about their backgrounds, whether it be Winnie (Katy Huntley) who has been thieving since the age of six or Pitty (Lucy Bray) who is profoundly disturbed having been abused when younger.
The treatment of the women by the men is deliberately shocking, Sarge (Tom McKenna) has a brutal and cynical way of dealing with them whilst the Surgeon (Caspar Lloyd James) is sympathetic but ineffectual, and the Captain (Laurence Panter) only thinks about his profit. It is left to the new recruit, the young Tommy (Lars Fischer) to develop a sympathy with the women. Some scenes are deliberately disturbing and violent, but these are kept short and we were given a mosaic of impressions, but it was our sympathy with the women which counted for most.
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| Banished, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance 2016 (Copyright) Lidia Crisafulli |
All the women were based on real characters, and to bring this home at the outset each had a small square of cotton bearing their name and crime (often trivial), whilst at the end each bore a square bearing their name and future destiny.
Conductor Jessica Cottis drew a lyrical and dramatic performance from the orchestra, bringing out McNeff's rather fascinating textures. Despite communicating with her cast mainly via monitors, there was no sense of unevenness in the ensembles.
This was a vivid and uplifting evening in the theatre, with the sense of a striking new work being created. All concerned gave a strong ensemble performance, with no sense of first night uncertainty. The opera is being performed at Blackheath Halls until 2 July 2016, but given its strengths and the remarkable range of female roles, I am certainly looking forward to further productions.
Elsewhere on this blog:
- Two visionaries: Stockhausen & Scriabin from Vanessa Benelli Mosell - CD review
- Short & bitter-sweet: Yaniv d'Or at the Wigmore Hall - concert review
- Filling the shoes of Handel's favourite tenor: Where'er you walk from Allan Clayton, Ian Page & Classical Opera - CD review
- Emotional punch: Puccini's La fanciulla del West at Grange Park Opera - opera review
- Grandeur and intimacy: Verdi's Don Carlo at Grange Park Opera - opera review
- Youthful ensemble: Young artists La Boheme at Opera Holland Park - opera review
- Real ensemble: Jenufa at the London Coliseum - opera review
- Elegant and intense: Mozart's Idomeneo at Garsington - opera review
- Baroque/folk mash-up: L'Avventura London and The Old Blind Dogs - concert review
- Brahms & Bruce: Julian Bliss and the Carducci Quartet - Cd review
- Unevenly spread: Purcell's King Arthur re-imagined - concert review
- New folk-influenced music: Apollo Chamber Players - CD review
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