Turnage double bill, QEH 3Jul97

Twice through the heart: Mark Anthony Turnage and Jackie Kay

Sally Burgess

The country of the blind: Mark Anthony Turnage and Clare Venables

Thomas Randle     Nunez
Regina Nathan     Medina
Keel Watson       The Elder

Nicholas Kok      Conductor

Orchestra of English National Opera

This is a short note for the record (or anyone interested who has given up
trying to connect to The Times site), as this has been extensively reviewed
in the newspapers, either from the premiere at Aldeburgh or the South Bank
performances. Both works were developed in the ENO Contemporary Opera
Studio.

Twice through the heart is a scena or dramatic song cycle for mezzo. The
text is developed from a cycle of poems that Kay originally wrote for a
television film about a woman who eventually stabbed her abusive husband.
Text and music explore the constraints of convention and violence, ending
in the physical constraint of prison, but including a euphoric memory, in
the song Love, of early happiness that contains the seeds of tragedy. (The
real woman was in fact released on appeal, according to Turnage in an
interview in the programme.)

The singer has no name. Turnage and Kay explored then rejected the
possibility of producing a chamber opera with judge and police. Instead,
the isolation of the single voice conveys the woman's loneliness, though
its diversity suggests her inner resources. Sally Burgess's performance was
totally absorbing and very moving.

The country of the blind, based on the short story by HG Wells was equally
intense, but more complex, and mystifying. The story is a pregnant parable
of a climber who falls into a community of blind people and comes to
understand that he is not superior to them, partly as a result of falling
in love with Medina, but nevertheless leaves rather than integrate
completely.

The opera was fully staged, with a sort of pin-board set on which the
singers and supers formed shapes, and scaffolds at either side of the
stage. Nunez, the climber, wore climbing gear, while the blind wore various
draped dresses and masks. Thomas Randle did some impressive looking
climbing, including a final aufseil (if there is such a thing) stage
centre.

Like Twice through the heart, this was totally engrossing. The action moved
swiftly in a work that lasted about 45 minutes. There was almost no sense
of Nunez' feeling of belonging beyond his love for Medina, but the drama of
his need to get out was powerful.

Thomas Randle was particularly impressive as Nunez, but the ensemble
singing was very good as well, and Regina Nathan was lovely as Medina, both
a romantic woman and a wise (though blind) observer.

I have to admit that I can't remember much about the music from this
evening, though I found it powerful and moving at the time. Part of it
might be simply my ignorance of what goes into this sort of composition.
But I think it might also have something to do with Turnage's dramatic
technique. He concentrates on the struggle of the individual voice against
oblivion in the moment, and the triumph of survival is euphoric to the
point of temporarily obliterating the memory of struggle. I know that he's
used Beckett as a starting point before, for example in the soprano sax
concerto Your Rockaby. In many ways, this was a thoroughly Beckettian
evening, raising an existential cheer in the end.