(3 / 5)

If the objective of art and performance is to encourage the observer to ask questions of both the piece and of themselves, then this production certainly does that. ‘Violet’ the new contemporary opera from Music Theatre Wales with music by composer Tom Coult and libretto by Alice Birch is both thought provoking and arresting.

Set largely in one room in a seemingly affluent household within a small village, the opera explores the concept of losing practical time daily and the impact this has on an individual and a society. The undeniable vocal talents of Anna Dennis as the main protagonist, Violet and her, at best fractious at worst toxic, relationship with husband Felix played by Richard Burkhard make for bitter exchanges fuelled by vitriol and spent passion. The libretto uses blunt truths and humour to articulate the harsh realities of a broken marriage, underscored by tones of misogyny and coercive control. The characters are not likeable and the musical score, performed brilliantly by the London Sinfonia orchestra echoes this jarring, uncomfortable feeling for the observer.

The vocal range of all the performers is incredible. Violet’s calm acceptance while those around her crumbled was portrayed by Anna Dennis with a serenity and almost childlike absence of concern that would have been welcomed by me as a viewer. The juxtaposition of Dennis’ piercing soprano and Richard Burkhard’s baritone was palpable and the shift in the balance of their relationship demonstrated to great effect through the peaks and troughs in tone and pace of the accompanying score. Frances Gregory as Laura the maid brings an understated yet powerful presence to the mix and Andrew MacKenzie Wicks as the clockeeper has an ominous presence throughout the performance, and acts as a reminder of the inevitability of time passing whether we want it to or not.  The music takes the audience on a journey through a range of sounds both familiar in the ticking of a clock and at times challenging and uncomfortable. What felt like a cacophony of sound at times, perhaps representing the confusion and uncertainty felt by the characters in their increasingly desperate situation, ultimately left me a little overwhelmed which may have been its intension.

Rose Elnile’s staging was minimal but effective and the mix of old and new meant that the action could have taken place years ago or yesterday, bringing the unnerving concept of the opera closer to home. The animated backdrop representing the outside world transforming from idyllic summer sky to a dystopian nuclear cloud with floating dandelion clocks was an interesting addition that prompts a conversation about climate change and taking notice of what is going on around us. The twist at the end of the performance, no spoilers, didn’t work for me as a viewer but it made for a discussion point that will divide opinion and interpretation.

Cécile Trémolières costume design was interestingly simple with Violet morphing from a ‘Baby Jane’ esque image at the beginning to something from the Famous Five at the end reflecting her development in confidence and independence. Violet’s costume was the only one with any real personality or individuality and this served to single her out as a dissenting voice among the masses.

Time as a construct and how we value or use it is subjective and divisive, I suspect this contemporary opera is likely to be the same. If you are new to the genre of opera as I am, this is certainly an interesting baptism. I’m still not sure if I liked it, but I was talking about it when I got home and that has to mean something. 

(3 / 5)

Contemporary opera may be an unfamiliar genre to many, even fans of musical theatre, and this was not in the background of Tom Coult or Alice Birch before they collaborated to compose and write ‘Violet’. Opera traditionally is not sung in English and is set in specific times and places as the protagonists, often lovers, work out their fate, usually tragic, as they struggle against the prevailing social and political conventions. ‘Violet’ is not a story of love seeking to prevail in spite of contrary circumstances, like Tristan and Isolde, La Boheme, Tosca or Madame Butterfly but more Nabucco, of emancipation from constraints to freedom, and lovelessness.

Co-Produced by Music Theatre Wales and Britten Pears, the premise of ‘Violet’ is bold and imaginative in the same way as Nick Payne’s ‘Constellations’ was when it broke new ground at the Royal Court Theatre in 2012, exploring questions about time, free will, choice and death. It is of time disappearing an hour per day over 24, disrupting the balance of nature and the orderly life. Set in an indeterminate historical period and place, the story relates the effect of famine, drought and human misery on the personal lives of the characters, the fourth of whom is the clock-keeper (Andrew MacKenzie-Wicks) whose chief function is to manage the display on the clock-tower stage-right showing the passage of time and the diminishing hours.

The dramatic narrative is set around the centre-stage dining table of a well-to-do couple, Violet (Anna Dennis) married to the controlling Felix (Richard Burkhard), supported by their maid Laura (Frances Gregory). Violet and Felix sit at opposite ends ( reminiscent of the distance Putin keeps from visiting world leaders) while Felix and the clock-keeper sit adjacent to each other for their conversation about stopping the disappearance of time, indicating Felix is more concerned with worldly affairs than any intimacy with his wife. The costumes designed by Cécile Trémolières support the narrative and character arcs, the static male characters remain in puritanical black while Violet’s attire changes to show more colour and variety as she comes to assert herself more, seeing hope and opportunity with the disappearance of the hours that she hadn’t before. To reinforce the lack of reference to specific time and place, Laura initially wears a maid’s bonnet suggesting this is provincial 17th century era but then the men don Elizabethan ruffs, and Violet kneads bread on the table between plastic milk cartons and supermarket cereal packets.

The backcloth shows a skyscape that changes as the hours disappear, from blue with white clouds to garish orange, purple and black intimating the arrival of catastrophe. As we hear how orderly life is breaking down, so too the props are thrown about, aided by Laura who finally smashes the table after a tree suspended above dropping lower every day is left fallen across the domestic wreckage. The staging by director Jude Christian and designer Rosie Elnile is riveting in its focus to assist the narrative, with visual text beneath the stage in Welsh and English as helpful assistance. A particularly effective piece of staging was the last occasion we saw the clock-keeper, up on his tower lamenting the end of time, lit from behind to show on the backdrop as if he was a hanged man. In view of Felix’ fate, this was a brilliant touch.

Moments in the Alice Birch’s libretto narrative I particularly liked were the conversation between Felix and the clock-keeper, when Felix wants an explanation and insists the clock-keeper should give him one, which he can’t. The clock’s mechanisms are working fine but still an hour gets lost every day. This refers me again the premise of ‘Constellations’ where contradictory happenings can coexist across multiverses. The most magical moment was when Violet pulls a length of flax seemingly from the hidden edge of the long table that was centrepiece just before like everything else it was wrecked by the entropy of time. Suggesting reference to Macbeth, she wraps it around her husband’s neck as she prepares him for a dreamless sleep before he is found hanging from the clock tower, “sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, the death of each day’s life”. Indeed this story resonates strongly with the violation of nature Shakespeare portrays in his Scottish play. Excellent allusion.

There was a hole or two in the plot though e.g. on Day 4, as the town clock jumps 7 hours from midnight, and we learn that the lost time is daylight hours. Then when light is extinguished finally and Violet has her boat ready to escape with Laura who is afraid of drowning, we understand there are no news reports from the wider world about what has happened yet Violet assures Laura that many boats have crossed the sea over the horizon without sinking.

This brings me to the disappointment I felt about the outcome. Seeing no more of Violet whom with Laura we assume has been liberated to find a new life at last, the bizarre denouement is relayed as an animated collage on the backdrop, including the announcement a baby was born in January. Is this to Violet, yet how and by whom? A series of numbers is flashed up which I took to refer to quiz teams as we watch a quiz show where a contestant has to give 10 answers about the side effects of sarin, else calamity will ensue as images of warfare increasingly dominate the screen. The final quiz question is shocking. Why would a man use a gun? Answer – to shoot his children in the face. This is a nihilistic message with no apparent redemption for anyone. Unlike Shostakovich’s tenth symphony, also desperate, terrifying and dark but which is ultimately triumphant in the face of impossible horrors, ‘Violet’ fails to leave us with optimism about surviving catastrophe.

The narrative tension is supported consistently throughout by Tom Coult’s score, uncomfortably atonal, performed by the singers who must be credited for the hours of work they must have done to mesh their voices with the dissonant orchestration of the London Sinfonietta conducted by Andrew Gourlay, woodwind and brass very much at the fore punctuating the vocal exposition of the story, though with chimes and the ticking of clocks providing atmosphere and variety with some electronics. Anna Dennis is especially impressive in the title role as she hits her notes with astonishing precision. But for those who dislike the artificiality of musical theatre where dialogue can seem forced and contrived, they may not be impressed by such torturous delivery. While giving credit to the singers for maintaining their difficult lines over 90 minutes of a story about the disappearance of time, it may seem ironic how slowly the pace of the drama passed. With little obvious harmonic contrast,‘Violet’ seemed dissonant from start to finish, with no let up of the strident tension as an orderly world disintegrates. Comparing dissonance to being pepper, Prokofiev said no one wants to listen to music that’s all pepper. While after 4 hours of dissonance, the groundbreaking score of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde finally resolves with consonance, ‘Violet’ does not.

In summary then, ‘Violet’ as concept with narrative potential is intriguingly bold even if the denouement is finally disappointing, its staging was marvellous, and its performances commendable. Its shrewd avoidance of specificity as to time or place lends it the opportunity for long-term appearance in the canon of opera.

(4 / 5)

What happens when time runs out?  Panic, terror, fatalism?  Or resignation and even hope that a new beginning will bring better things?

After two years when many of us have felt the sorrow of lost time due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and ironically why this production has been delayed until now, Violet is both a timely and poignant reflection on the meaning of time and the feelings that it engenders. 

The work centres around three main characters – Violet (Anna Dennis), a depressed wife who hates the predictability of life in their town.  People rise, make bread and open their doors at exactly the same time each day. Nothing even changes, and Violet feels stultified by it.  Her husband, Felix (Richard Burkhard) exerts control over Violet, and is disturbed by the changes that he observes in his wife.  Their anxious housekeeper Laura (Frances Gregory) carries out her daily routine with an increasing sense of dread and terror. 

The action takes place around a table set with incongruous items of food and drink, a still life depicting an unspecified time and place. The characters’ dress does little to ground us either – Felix in modern dress, Laura in period clothing and Violet in an Alice in Wonderland-type outfit, complete with pigtails and bows. Violet is the first to notice that time is – literally – running out. The town loses one hour a day, and this process does not stop until there is no time left.  There are no hours left in the day. Felix and Laura collapse into panic and terror, witnessing the destruction of life around them, but depressed Violet is enlivened by events, sensing that a new beginning might just be possible. And at least something different is happening.

Co-produced by Music Theatre Wales and Britten Pears and directed by Jude Christian, it’s a short piece, running to just 85 minutes,.  As such, every word and note must earn its place, there is no room for any superfluous material.  Alice Birch uses language to great effect here and, coupled with Tom Coult’s haunting and poignant score, the overall effect is of a precarious balancing act between fear and a tiny amount of hope.  The soprano of Anna Dennis perfectly captures single words (“Yes”, “No”, “Time”) with alarming disquiet. Richard Burkhard provides a few moments of levity through his well-placed dialogue and voice. Frances Gregory and Andrew MacKenzie Wicks give assured performances as the housekeeper and the clock keeper.

Mention must be made of the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Andrew Gourlay. The 14 players execute the terse score beautifully, and the dexterity of the percussionist in particular, who handles an array of instruments with great aplomb, moving his score around with him, is to be admired.  Together with additional electronic sound effects, the sense of time running out is always palpable and very real.

What to make of the ending?  Is this a new world, with no humans left?  Whatever is happening in this place, time remains central.  But it is now marked by a digital clock, and the opera ends with the display ticking round to just after midnight.  So is there hope …. after all?

(4 / 5)

It looks like livestreams have not entirely left us. Though when one is as good as this, I shouldn’t moan. Theo Bleckmann is familiar to me with his extensive collaboration with Meredith Monk, though a Grammy winner, his jazz career should also be recognised.

In this midweek livestream, Theo along with Dan Tepfer on piano gave a warm, welcoming recital of Weimar songs, later German work and his own creations. The names of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht need little introduction, their cabaret numbers some of the best in the canon. Theo, with his perfect German, offered up rowdy numbers, tinged with a sharp irony and camp sensuality. As a singer, he is light and bright, though has a rounded lower range, perfect for these songs. The Alabama Song from The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany may be best known for The Doors’ cover, yet here it is brought back in a stripped down shot. You can feel the clamour of this drinking song, one that really gets in your head.

As accompanist, Dan Tepfer is everything a singer could want for. An deeply rooted understanding of the music, he displays an easy going, quiet persona, broody and subtle on screen. Unafraid to grapple with the score, his animation makes the experience all the more enjoyable. Dan was more than happy to answer questions from the livestream, pressing some of these onto Theo in an informal way to please this attentive audience at home. The highlight for me came in the middle with Hanns Eisler’s Friedenslied (also written by Brecht), an unashamedly melodic and sincere please for peace written in the composer’s time in East Germany. Well needed in this difficult year. A lovely moment came when they were both making sure they were in the right key before a song (turns out it was E flat), due to the jazz modulation changing that aspect of the song.

Theo’s own songs are a new discovery for me. You could easily compare his to Meredith’s work, though there is a telling sense of the lyric and the musical per se. Singing both Easy and Reason, they both demonstrated his talent in both approachable and experimental bands, one minute crooning, the next grunting and guttural. The amazing, free wheeling quality of Reason ended things with aplomb. Theo promised to do the classic Useless Landscape next time and his own Alphabet of Paints. Tantalising stuff!

Theo Bleckmann & Dan Tepfer perform at the Neue Galerie, New York on Thur 26 May 2022.