Yesterday to WNO's In Parenthesis, a new opera by Iain Bell from a libretto by David Antrobus and Emma Jenkins drawn from David Jones' long 1937 poem. The stage direction was by WNO's Music Director David Pountney with design by Robert Innes Hopkins.
Before the performance I had some misgivings, or curiosity perhaps, about how the composer would be able to set Jones' rich and densely allusive poetry. In the pre-performance talk, where Iain Bell joined the WNO's Sophie Rashbrook to introduce the work, he said that Pountney's commission to him and the librettists was for a work no more than about 1h 45m in length, so about 50m either side of an interval. This meant that only a relatively small part of Jones' text, with key scenes, was used. Bell took about a year over the composition, the first two months mulling over the text. As it emerges in performance, the libretto must be one of the most extraordinary in all opera, as Jones' language has been predominantly retained with all its many allusions to myth, literature and history. It's the only time I have been to the opera house and felt that the surtitles sometimes needed footnotes!
The challenge for the librettists, composer and production team was how to combine the literal, realist elements in the text - the waiting, the terror, the boredom, the extreme violence - with the mythic and the poetic, the evocation of past battles and legends. The librettists certainly didn't shirk that challenge, and the libretto contains English, Welsh, Latin and German at various points. One of their solutions I didn't feel worked well, namely to introduce as narrators two characters drawn from a later David Jones drawing, Epiphany 41, Britannia and Germania Embracing, these becoming in the opera the Bards of Britannia and Germania respectively. I thought it was too often a distraction - not least as there was already a female chorus on stage most of the time (the Chorus of Remembrance, later changing into the Spirits of the Woods in the second act). What narration was required could have been shared between the principal soldiers.
The production design, as generally with Pountney, was fairly sparse, with a platform that could be raised to allow soldiers to cower under when they were "dug in", and the front of the platform contained a tunnel in the shape of a rifle through which soldiers could go on watch. The stage was variously changed between parade ground, ship embarkation, camp, the Front, a French cafe and in the last scene Mametz Wood. There were few props, and few explosive effects, the scenes of military action being conveyed largely through lighting effects.
For the music, I always find it difficult to come to a view on first hearing and would like to hear it again (fortunately there will be another opportunity soon, see below). Some of the text was set directly to music, in other places the music acted as an accompaniment. There were arrangements of various well-known texts, the German carol Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, the Welsh folk song Sosban Fach and a Marian hymn in the second act. The closest influence I could detect was probably Britten, though Bell lacks his exceptional skill for setting words to music - I wonder if the device of using a male and female as choruses was drawn from The Rape of Lucretia.
As far as I could tell, the singers were very good, particularly Andrew Bidlack as Private Ball and Donald Maxwell as Dai Greatcoat, and Carlo Rizzi conducted the WNO orchestra sensitively. Most plaudits though I thought were due to the WNO Chorus who sang wonderfully.
Cameras were recording this performance which is to be shown online on the Opera Platform on 1 July as part of the commemorations for the centenary of the start of the Battle of the Somme. I think also WNO are taking the production to London at some point. Pountney and the WNO are to be congratulated for a brave and ambitious commission, and everyone concerned in the production for realising it.
Before the performance I had some misgivings, or curiosity perhaps, about how the composer would be able to set Jones' rich and densely allusive poetry. In the pre-performance talk, where Iain Bell joined the WNO's Sophie Rashbrook to introduce the work, he said that Pountney's commission to him and the librettists was for a work no more than about 1h 45m in length, so about 50m either side of an interval. This meant that only a relatively small part of Jones' text, with key scenes, was used. Bell took about a year over the composition, the first two months mulling over the text. As it emerges in performance, the libretto must be one of the most extraordinary in all opera, as Jones' language has been predominantly retained with all its many allusions to myth, literature and history. It's the only time I have been to the opera house and felt that the surtitles sometimes needed footnotes!
The challenge for the librettists, composer and production team was how to combine the literal, realist elements in the text - the waiting, the terror, the boredom, the extreme violence - with the mythic and the poetic, the evocation of past battles and legends. The librettists certainly didn't shirk that challenge, and the libretto contains English, Welsh, Latin and German at various points. One of their solutions I didn't feel worked well, namely to introduce as narrators two characters drawn from a later David Jones drawing, Epiphany 41, Britannia and Germania Embracing, these becoming in the opera the Bards of Britannia and Germania respectively. I thought it was too often a distraction - not least as there was already a female chorus on stage most of the time (the Chorus of Remembrance, later changing into the Spirits of the Woods in the second act). What narration was required could have been shared between the principal soldiers.
The production design, as generally with Pountney, was fairly sparse, with a platform that could be raised to allow soldiers to cower under when they were "dug in", and the front of the platform contained a tunnel in the shape of a rifle through which soldiers could go on watch. The stage was variously changed between parade ground, ship embarkation, camp, the Front, a French cafe and in the last scene Mametz Wood. There were few props, and few explosive effects, the scenes of military action being conveyed largely through lighting effects.
For the music, I always find it difficult to come to a view on first hearing and would like to hear it again (fortunately there will be another opportunity soon, see below). Some of the text was set directly to music, in other places the music acted as an accompaniment. There were arrangements of various well-known texts, the German carol Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, the Welsh folk song Sosban Fach and a Marian hymn in the second act. The closest influence I could detect was probably Britten, though Bell lacks his exceptional skill for setting words to music - I wonder if the device of using a male and female as choruses was drawn from The Rape of Lucretia.
As far as I could tell, the singers were very good, particularly Andrew Bidlack as Private Ball and Donald Maxwell as Dai Greatcoat, and Carlo Rizzi conducted the WNO orchestra sensitively. Most plaudits though I thought were due to the WNO Chorus who sang wonderfully.
Cameras were recording this performance which is to be shown online on the Opera Platform on 1 July as part of the commemorations for the centenary of the start of the Battle of the Somme. I think also WNO are taking the production to London at some point. Pountney and the WNO are to be congratulated for a brave and ambitious commission, and everyone concerned in the production for realising it.
what is the Opera Platform?
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