The juniper tree by Rodney Watkins and Patricia Debney, based on a fairy
tale by the brothers Grimm

Father      Robert Poulton
Mother      Alison Kettlewell
Stepmother  Penelope Walmsley-Clark
Marlinchen  Louise Mott
Boy         Timothy Webb

Conductor   William Lacey
Director    David McVicar
Set         Michael Vale

The London Sinfonietta

This production has already appeared, with considerable critical acclaim,
in the Munich Bienniale. Reviews in the UK press have been mixed. I found
it powerful but humourless -- a bit like Hansel and Gretel without the
musical gingerbread and angels.

The basic story of The juniper tree is a bare-bones Grimm nasty: a couple
have a boy, and the mother dies. The step mother murders the boy, persuades
his sister (in this version, the step-mother's daughter) that she has
killed him, and serves the body up as stew. The daughter collects the bones
and buries them under the juniper tree. A bird sings on the tree, asking
the father for presents. The father finally gives the bird his mill stone,
which drops on the step mother. The boy comes back to life, and the
survivors live miserably ever after.

The story is simply told, with ritualistic intervals. The first is playful
when Marlinchen plays with her brother using (English) nursery rhymes to
bring him out of his sulk. The second is oracular: the bird sings the story
of the boy's death over and over again, with musical variations as the
truth becomes clearer to the father. The orchestra, divided between wind on
one side and strings on the other, with substantial percussion on both
sides, added a ritual and magical context.

The characters are all simply defined, each with a single core emotion.
Penelope Walmsley-Clark was suitably strident, and brought the only comic
touch, as the nasty step mother, and Louise Mott sang beautifully as the
affectionate but naive sister.

The set and costumes were a very elegant version of traditional Grimms'
tales illustrations. The set consisted of a house cut away on one side to
reveal a kitchen with table and chairs, and revolved to take the action
inside and outside the house. The murder (by decapitation) was done rather
restrainedly, to the disappointment of some friends of the alternate boy in
the cast, who was apparently told not to overdo his death agony.

I can see the interest of setting a story like this: it has all the basics
of opera in simple terms, contrasting brutality and sympathy in particular.
But (as the small boy who wanted to ham it up obviously felt) you can't
really do this sort of thing straight and dignified. A sort of companion
piece at the Almeida next week, The Cenci by Giorgio Batistelli, goes over
the top into the theatre of cruelty. Most opera romanticises or eroticises
the violence. And grim comedy is often the most succesful approach, as in
Angela Carter's fairy story adaptations. The only opera I can think of that
deals with cruelty and redemption without either excess or comedy is
Britten's Curlew River, which has quite a lot in common thematically with
The juniper tree. But Britten uses the context of the monastic/Noh ritual,
which provides a lot more weight than a domestic tale does.

Still, this is Rodney Watkins' first opera, and it will be good to see more.