Sarah Kane (1971-99) was to British Drama in the late 20th Century what Christopher Marlowe had been four hundred years previously - except that her work was rarely performed here during her lifetime; instead, it received an enthusiastic reputation in many countries abroad where critics and audiences were far more appreciative of its intense presentation of people at the extremes of emotional violence - visceral, in that it twists the guts both of the characters onstage and of the audience who witness. So unlike the home life of our own, dear Queen.
How - and why - this could be translated into the medium of Music Theatre is something I can't imagine, which is why this broadcast of Philip Venables(b1979)'s adaptation of Kane's final (and shortest) work so intrigues me. Can the composer's style - sort-of Birtwistle's Punch & Judy meets post-Andrieesen - really add anything to what is already there in Kane's text, or will it simply dilute it for the delicate sensitivities of British Good Taste? The critics were very enthusiastic about the new opera - which suggests the latter, of course - but that shouldn't necessarily put us off. The composer introduces his work, and with particular mention of the new opera, in this youTube video:
... which suggests something much more interesting than any of the "new" Music Theatre works presented on Hear & Now over the past several months.
How - and why - this could be translated into the medium of Music Theatre is something I can't imagine, which is why this broadcast of Philip Venables(b1979)'s adaptation of Kane's final (and shortest) work so intrigues me. Can the composer's style - sort-of Birtwistle's Punch & Judy meets post-Andrieesen - really add anything to what is already there in Kane's text, or will it simply dilute it for the delicate sensitivities of British Good Taste? The critics were very enthusiastic about the new opera - which suggests the latter, of course - but that shouldn't necessarily put us off. The composer introduces his work, and with particular mention of the new opera, in this youTube video:
... which suggests something much more interesting than any of the "new" Music Theatre works presented on Hear & Now over the past several months.
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