United Kingdom Opera Double Bill: Michael Nyman, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat & Gavin Bryars, Marilyn Forever: Opera college students and musicians of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland / William Cole (conductor). Sir Alexander Gibson Opera Studio, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow, 2.11.2022. (MC)
Production (each operas):
Stage Direction – Caroline Clegg
Designer – Finlay McLay
Lighting designer – Davy Cunningham
Nyman, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Cast:
Dr. S – William Searle
Dr. P – Ross Cumming
Mrs. P – Marie Cayeux
Some years in the past, I recall studying how priceless music schools and conservatories are for encountering non-standard repertoire. How true that’s! Prior to my Glasgow journey the opera double invoice on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland piqued my consideration. Not dwelling near a metropolis, it was a uncommon deal with to attend a pair of latest operas.
The opening chamber opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a minimalist work in a single act written by Michael Nyman in 1986 to a libretto by Christopher Rawlence primarily based on a real neurological case examine by Oliver Sacks. The opera issues certainly one of Dr. Oliver Sachs’s sufferers Dr. P who’s a gifted singer and trainer of music affected by Visual Agnosia a situation leading to visible recognition problem, being unable to establish folks, objects and locations with which he’s acquainted. This is an instance of a neurological dysfunction of the mind demonstrating its functionality of adjusting to new situations.
Rawlence’s libretto follows how Dr. Sachs progressively identifies the basis of Dr. P’s signs and taking lower than an hour the opera didn’t outsay its welcome. Burdened with this uncommon neurological dysfunction we noticed Dr. P paddling towards the tide, adrift in a world from which he can’t escape. At one level Dr. P didn’t recognise his spouse and reached out considering she was a hat. I knew that Gustav Mahler had a psychoanalysis session with Sigmund Freud in 1910 and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than I used to be contemplating parallels with Dr. Sachs as Freud, Dr. P as Mahler, and Mrs. P as Mahler’s spouse Alma.
The solid of a mere three soloists along with the modest sized chamber group creates an unsettling and fairly perplexing world of dissonance, dislocation, anxiousness and dislocation but there’s a coherence and arresting enchantment. In 2019 I reported from the Dialogues des Carmélites on the RNCM, Manchester the place baritone Ross Cumming excelled within the position of Le Marquis de la Force. Cummings works laborious at his performing and as Dr. P put his coronary heart and soul into this demanding position and it paid dividends, creating an enchanting character in a position to shroud himself with important stress.
French soprano Marie Cayeux is gaining substantial opera expertise with quite a few engagements beneath her belt. Well suited to the position of Mrs. P., Cayeux will not be solely a cultured singer she is a peaceful, collected and classy actress blessed with the expertise for making challenges appear simple, particularly her troubling concern for the wellbeing of her husband. A pianist too, Cayeux made quick work of Mrs. P’s episode on the child grand piano.
The position of neurologist Dr. Sachs requires narration in addition to singing and performing, attributes tenor William Searle handed with flying colors. With his quietly assured method Searle shows an interesting tone and spectacular diction, along with a noticeable concern for the that means of the textual content.
Nyman’s chamber orchestration is spare utilizing 4 strings, a harp and piano and though minimal his scoring by no means sounds austere and wearily repetitive. With his scoring he astutely works in a number of of Robert Schumann’s lieder and I did recognise ‘Ich grolle nicht’ from Dichterliebe.
Bryars, Marilyn Forever
Cast:
Marilyn – Megan Baker
The Men – Ross Cumming
The Tritones – James McIntyre and Ryan Garnham
Next got here the manufacturing of Gavin Bryars’s one act chamber opera Marilyn Forever that was premiered in 2013. Marilyn Bowering’s libretto is centred on the final night time of display screen icon Marilyn Monroe’s life with flashbacks to different notable occasions. The following day after attending Marilyn Forever within the metropolis Gallery of Modern Art I noticed an exhibit by Grayson Perry which contained his citation ‘I want to make something that lives with the eye as a beautiful piece of art, but on closer inspection, a polemic or an ideology will come out of it’. Reading the Grayson Perry quote made me contemplate how many individuals, together with myself, have a selected view on Marilyn Monroe which is restricted to her sensual and head turning physique language notably her well-known pout and wiggle, and her breathy, sex-kitten efficiency of the track I Wanna Be Loved by You from the Billy Wilder hit movie Some Like It Hot (1959). I admit to figuring out just about nothing of Monroe or ought to I say Norma Jeane Mortenson, as a person, as an individual, and right here Bowering’s libretto to Marilyn Forever within the Schott Music rating ‘examines the inner life of Marilyn Monroe, and her intellectual and emotional relationships with death and love.’
Megan Baker set the heartbeat racing as Marilyn, adroitly portraying each the blonde bombshell’s public facet and the not often glimpsed susceptible and broken non-public facet such because the miscarriages, psychological well being difficulties, drug abuse and the dangerously mysterious males in her life. Not solely was Baker made up as a dead-ringer for Marilyn she had the showy mannerisms off to a tee. Baker’s vocal show was greater than acceptable, in a surprising efficiency that captured the essence of the character. I got here away studying how far more there was to Marilyn a multidimensional character far more complicated than the facet the media promulgates. Almost per week since attending the opera, it nonetheless resonates with me.
Ross Cumming gave one other wholehearted efficiency as a variety of males in Marilyn’s life comparable to baseball participant Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. If Cummings was feeling fatigue from enjoying Dr. P in Nyman’s chamber opera, it barely confirmed in what was a redoubtable efficiency. James McIntyre and Ryan Garnham within the secondary roles as The Tritones did all that was required of them.
Bryars has richly scored his chamber opera for a small ensemble of eight gamers, strings with clarinet/bass clarinet, horn, bassoon and percussion. There can also be a forwardly positioned trio of tenor saxophone, piano and double bass performed pizzicato that provides a pronounced jazz flavour to the rating. William Cole carried out holding the tempi brisk, and his scholar musicians appeared totally ready. Standing along with his again near the sting of a raised platform Cole appeared in peril of falling off.
Stage director Caroline Clegg and designer Finlay McLay did a outstanding job with each the Nyman and Bryars operas. This artistic group actually made spectacular use of the Opera Studio house that felt heat and vibrant with agreeable set and costume design to match the interval.
A extremely absorbing coupling of two fascinating chamber operas The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat with Marilyn Forever resulted in a scholar manufacturing that I’ve nothing however reward.
Michael Cookson