Distracting opera for distracted times: The Second Violinist

Donnacha Dennehy: The Second Violinist - Aaron Monaghan - Landmark Productions and Wide Open Opera
(Photo Patrick Redmond)

Donnacha Dennehy, Enda Walsh The Second Violinist; Landmark Productions & Irish National Opera; Barbican Theatre Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on 6 September 2018 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
Enda Walsh and Donnacha Dennehy's collaboration set out to ‘explode opera’s conventions’

Donnacha Dennehy: The Second Violinist - Benedict Nelson -
Landmark Productions and Wide Open Opera - (Photo Patrick Redmond)

The Second Violinist is the second of playwright Enda Walsh and composer Donnacha Dennehy’s collaborations, the first being The Last Hotel in 2015. They called it an opera. It was jointly produced by between theatre producers Landmark Productions and Irish National Opera and I think I wasn’t the only one in the audience to wonder if it was an opera really. Walsh and Dennehy set out to ‘explode opera’s conventions’, according to an article on the Barbican website.

It was a multimedia mashup with three opera singers and a chorus and a main character who doesn’t sing a note. Above all, for me it was a reflection on how our attention and focus are compromised in our overloaded age.

There is a plot of sorts but, as in real life, the chronology and the relationships were not straightforward. The Second Violinist of the title is failing professionally and, rather than tackle the problem, he spends pretty much the whole show tied up in displacement activity his phone – playing a violent video game, flirting on Tinder, obsessing about Carlo Gesualdo, listening to voicemails but deleting them before he gets to the end, batting away annoying marketing texts from a restaurant. Aaron Monaghan is the silent violinist Martin. He emerges from the pit at the beginning of the show, puts his violin in its case and doesn’t open it again. He has a face and body that are so expressive of his torment that he is both compelling and painful to watch.

The other main characters are singers: his ex, Amy (Sharon Carty), now unhappily married to Matthew (Benedict Nelson) who tries his luck with Amy’s friend Hannah (Máire Flavin) over booze, cigarettes and a game of Twister. They cope well with their angular, unidiomatic vocal lines but we, the audience, are dependent on the surtitles for comprehension.

The surtitles were only one of our reading tasks for the evening. The content of Martin’s interactions with his phone (including his accidental filming of his feet) was projected on to a wide screen at the back of the stage. As was the footage of murmurations of starlings – beautiful in its own right, but incongruous when we were observing the protagonist’s destructive trajectory. Or maybe that is the point.

Donnacha Dennehy: The Second Violinist - Aaron Monaghan, Sharon Carty
Landmark Productions and Wide Open Opera - (Photo Patrick Redmond)

Conducted by Ryan McAdams, the orchestra consisted of fourteen players of the Crash Ensemble, a long-standing Irish new-music ensemble who played what was essentially a film score from a pit sunk inside the stage. There were hints of Gesualdo as well as some powerful effects that communicated the Second Violinist’s state of mind. There was a chorus who sang an excruciatingly stilted party piece (they were an actual opera chorus).

It only lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, and it was quite enough for this overly real, overloaded piece. I am not sure if opera’s conventions were exploded but my head certainly was.

Reviewed by Ruth Hansford

The Second Violinist, 6^th September 2018 at the Barbican Theatre

Reviewed by Ruth Hansford

 

Composed by Donnacha Dennehy

Written and directed by Enda Walsh

Ryan McAdams Conductor

Jamie Vartan Design

Adam Silverman Lighting

Jack Phelan Video

David Sheppard and Helen Atkinson Sound

Joan O’Clery Costumes

Performers

Aaron Monaghan – Martin

Máire Flavin – Hannah

Sharon Carty – Amy

Benedict Nelson – Matthew

Kimani Arthur – Scarlett

Chorus of Wide Open Opera

Crash Ensemble

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