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| Elena Langer: Four Sisters - Jingwen Cai, Ellen Pearson, Hannah Edmunds, Madeline Robinson, Sam Hird - Royal Opera (Photo: Mark Senior) |
Tales of Love and Loss: Elizabeth Maconchy: The Departure, Charlotte Bray: Making Arrangements, Elena Langer: Four Sisters; Ellen Pearson, Sam Hird, Hannah Edmunds, Jingwen Cai, Giorgi Guliashvili, Madeline Robinson, director Talia Stern, Britten Sinfonia, conductor Peggy Wu; Royal Opera at Linbury Theatre
The Jette Parker Young Artists in a satisfying triple bill that provides a valuable opportunity to hear Maconchy's neglected opera alongside Charlotte Bray in sharp form and Elena Langer's vividly fast-paced New York farce.
For the latest Jette Parker Young Artists outing the Royal Opera has put together a satisfying and fascinating triple bill of operas by women composers. Tales of Love and Loss at the Linbury Theatre features Elizabeth Maconchy's The Departure, Charlotte Bray's Making Arrangements and Elena Langer's Four Sisters. The director was Talia Stern with designs by Ana Ines Jabares-Pita. Peggy Wu conducted the Britten Sinfonia with Ellen Pearson, Sam Hird, Hannah Edmunds, Jingwen Cai, Giorgi Guliashvili and Madeline Robinson.
Ana Ines Jabares-Pita's set successfully used the same basic form for the first two operas, The Departure firmly in the 1960s, and Making Arrangements suggesting the 1970s but for 1980s New York in Four Sisters we had an entirely newer, edgier look.
Maconchy's The Departure dates from 1961 and has a libretto by the poet Ann Ridler. The opera was last performed by Independent Opera at Sadler's Wells Theatre in 2007 in a double bill with Maconchy's The Sofa (which has a libretto by Ursula Vaughan Williams). The work is a simple two hander (but with an off-stage chorus).
We are in a bedroom with a woman (Ellen Pearson) getting ready and worried about being late to meet her husband (Sam Hird). She finds she has forgotten details, what he looks like and such, and is puzzled that he is outside bidding goodbye to friends without her. It soon becomes apparent, to us, that she is a ghost, the woman has just died, and she is here to bid her husband goodbye.
The second half of the piece, when we have realised what is going on, is perhaps over-extended, the woman trying too often to leave and failing. But Ellen Pearson was wonderfully sympathetic as the woman, Julia, mixing naturalism with lyrically rapturous moments with her mezzo-soprano revealing a beautifully fluid and flexible top. Sam Hird was moving as the man, Mark, though the role was inevitably somewhat one-dimensional. Maconchy's style which mixed lyricism with a little spice was highly expressive and certainly not a boilerplate copy of her teacher, RVW.
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| Elizabeth Maconchy: The Departure - Ellen Pearson, Sam Hird - Royal Opera |
Charlotte Bray wrote Making Arrangements in 2012 for Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival. The libretto by Kate Kennedy was based on a short story by Elizabeth Bowen. Here the focus was very much on the man, Hewson (Sam Hird) who has received a letter from his absent wife, Margery (Hanna Edmunds). The work opens with the maid, Jingwen Cai filling us in like a Greek chorus. Throughout the opera this use of multiple characters in what could have been a large solo piece for the baritone was remarkably effective. With Cai now off-stage, Hird's Hewson opens the letter and his reading of it is counterpointed by Edmunds' Margery doing so as well, her skittish delivery contrasting with his more stolid reading. This creation of a marital duet (when the protagonists are in separate countries) gave us a vivid portrait of this failed marriage. Giorgi Guliashvili had a small role as Margery's current lover, Leslie, wearing an outfit that highlighted the idiocy suggested in the score. The Making Arrangements of the title refer to Margery's wish for Hewson to sort out their divorce and send on her dresses. He starts this latter but ends up destroying them in a frenzy, revealing a different side to his stolid character.
Bray's music was sharp-edged and vivid, yet always allowing the voices the necessary lyricism. The imaginative use of multiple voices and the sense of real musical storytelling without trying to make and 21st century musical points were all in the work's favour.
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| Charlotte Bray: Making Arrangements - Sam Hird - Royal Opera (Photo: Mark Senior) |
Elena Langer's Four Sisters was written in 2012 at the request of Dawn Upshaw for students at Bard College, New York. For this performance, Langer had reorchestrated the work for chamber orchestra. John Lloyd Davies' witty libretto recycles Chekov's Three Sisters but makes them daughters of a rich (and recently deceased) Russian émigré in New York. The opera opens with the three (Jingwen Cai, Ellen Pearson, Madeline Robinson) all looking forward to the reading of the will and becoming rich; it is clear that all three are high maintenance. A maid, Hannah Edmunds, wanders to and fro making gnomic and intriguing comments, and finally the lawyer arrives, Sam Hird. There was much farcical business with the will and worries about the daughter of a Russian princess, but the opera's dénouement was well telegraphed partly because of the title Four Sisters.
Langer's music was vivid and fast moving. Despite the reduced orchestration she had some wonderfully strong colours (including taxi horns and a Swannee whistle). The three sisters often sang in ensemble, their music fast-paced, loud and in your face as might be expected from the three women who are New Yorkers to a tee. Each gets a solo moment where Langer allowed herself some fun, and she can write a mean Calypso. Hannah Edmunds' maid was the most sympathetic character and had plenty of moments addressing us directly, whilst Sam Hird's lawyer was pure Noo York caricature.
The result was fast-paced indeed, and the cast made the most of their over the top moments along with some neat dance routines. If the three sisters were perhaps over-loud and intensely annoying that almost certainly reflected very real characterisation. The piece certainly did not outstay its welcome and the 40 minutes flew past.
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| Elena Langer: Four Sisters - Jingwen Cai, Ellen Pearson, Madeline Robinson, Hannah Edmunds - Royal Opera (Photo: Mark Senior) |
Director Talia Stern barely put a foot wrong and all three operas were presented in imaginative and satisfying ways with the cast moving between styles with admirably virtuosity.
In the pit, Peggy Wu and the Britten Sinfonia did more than justice to the three very different scores, moving from the lyricism of Maconchy to the stylistic eclecticism and hard edge of Langer's New York.
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