‘Picture a Day Like This’ is the fourth collaboration between George Benjamin and Martin Crimp. Despite being just over an hour long, it is impressively weighty; about a Woman coming to terms with the death of her young child through a quest - obtaining a button from the sleeve of someone who is truly happy, which will restore her child to life. The poetic text is has a mythic, fairy-tale quality that is oxymoronically lucid yet oblique, and is illuminated by Benjamin’s beautiful writing for the voice and exquisite scoring for the chamber sized orchestra. Each of the ostensibly happy people the Woman encounters is ultimately revealed to have a flaw that disbars them from donating a button; that is until she finally meets Zabelle in the fantastical garden of her creation. But there is a catch, being the point of the tale, which leaves the Woman enlightened, and us with much to absorb. Although small, the orchestra is eclectically comprised; celesta, harp and tubular bells create beautiful glints and motes of sound, while a contrabassoon growls, and a cello creates a sound I’ve never before experienced. Each of the encounters the Woman makes have a distinctive sound world. In one, with a self-important Composer and her Assistant, Benjamin and Crimp have fun satirically portraying their craft, its importance and its personal cost; it’s like Tár being compressed into ten minutes. I was constantly reminded by the The Turn of the Screw, for the skill and variety of the orchestration and by the parallel between the Woman and the Governess, who although steer the drama are reactive to the actions of others. The voices on stage and within the orchestra sometimes meld or separate with beguiling effect. Ema Nokolovska plays the Woman, with a rich mezzo tone, providing the core vocal content. John Brancy as dual roles of an Artisan and a Collector shows astonishing range, from baritone to counter-tenor registers, which Benjamin exploits, but not in a flashy way. The entire cast is exemplary.
So there is much here to admire and to assimilate that a first encounter cannot absorb. It’s playing at the Lindbury Theatre at the ROH through to October 10, and will be broadcast on R3 on October 14.
So there is much here to admire and to assimilate that a first encounter cannot absorb. It’s playing at the Lindbury Theatre at the ROH through to October 10, and will be broadcast on R3 on October 14.
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