Bennett - The Wilderness Voices (Belfast, 2026)

Ed Bennett - The Wilderness Voices

Sonic Lab, Sonic Arts Research Centre, 12th March 2026

Ed Bennett is a composer who some might associate more with loud and often dissonant contemporary music, mainly with his large scale orchestral works and in genre defying experiments with his Decibel Ensemble, but those are just one side of his efforts to express the themes and ideas that he has for his music, and there is another side to his work that can be just as effective, adventurous and experimental in an altogether quieter more meditative minimalist register. Reflective maybe, but still with an unsettling edge that gives you pause and refuses to let it simply slip over you.

We saw two sides of the composer's range recently in two works with a similar environmental theme both related to the sea. Premiered at the Brilliant Corners Festival in Belfast in 2025, All Earth Once Drowned with poet Cherry Smyth and the Decibel Ensemble managed to simultaneously celebrate the power, beauty and wonder of the sea while expressing anger at the catastrophic impact of environmental waste on this precious resource of nature. On the other hand a recording of Strange Waves in 2023 written for eight cellos, field recordings and electronics, the cellos all played in a multi-tracked recording by Kate Ellis was a more meditative piece drawing you into the sea, so to speak. Ed’s latest piece The Wilderness Voices uses a similar soloist layering technique, this time with the voice, supplemented with electronics.

Where Kate Ellis' cello was perfect for the rhythms and variable moods of the sea, the layered singing of mezzo-soprano Michelle O’Rourke brings an essential human element to the sentiments that form an integral part of the subject and mood of the new piece. As the composer explained in the introduction to the world premiere performance of the work, The Wilderness Voices started out with an environmental theme - clearly something that is foremost in the minds of many artists at the moment - but the death of his father at the time of composition played a part in how the piece developed. In the case of Kate Ellis on Strange Waves, the Covid pandemic lockdown made it easier for one musician to play all the parts, but there is also something surely of it being a matter of why seek more than one musician when you can have the best play all the parts? In the case of The Wilderness Voices there is a similar thought of why use more than one singer when Michelle O'Rourke can do it all herself. It's probably more a case however that the nature of this new work is very much more related to personal sentiments that can only be expressed by the human voice, or indeed an array of single human voices seeking to, well, presumably find a way out of the wilderness.

That's certainly more of a challenge to get that across in a 'live' performance, but it was one that Michelle O'Rourke proved capable of controlling to impressive effect. And there could hardly be a more suitable sound environment for the premiere of the work than the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen's University in Belfast, with its superb custom-built acoustics and speaker system capable of integrating the voice and electronics. Composed as a six-part 40-minute piece, the first section consists of gently introducing you into the sound world of a live vocalisations with a few echoing pre-recorded layers. The piece develops across each of the six parts, a low subsonic electronic boom introducing a drone like electronic backing in the second part, integrating and building with the layers and echoes of the multiple tracked voice recordings triggered by the singer.

Perhaps the layering of elements in Brian Irvine's musical-theatre piece Where We Bury the Bones was still in my mind from a performance at the Lyric Theatre the previous evening, but there seemed to be a similar searching quality to the work using considerably fewer elements, seeking not necessarily to reconcile the various layers of the voice, but to find a connecting theme that allowed all of them to co-exist and express itself in a way that words alone would be inadequate to describe. Gradually however, midway through the piece, a phrase formed from the vocalisations; "I am here now". Not an answer, not a revelation, but an acceptance of the only essential truth that one can say for certain about anything, that you are here now in the present.

There is comfort in that thought, but - how can I say this without sounding like I am denigrating the work? - you could almost see it as a meditative piece that brings you to place of self-awareness of being here and now in the present. Being Ed Bennett however the purpose of The Wilderness Voices is not to take you to a comfortable soothing place, and the fact that a piece of experimental contemporary music can be described as beautiful need not suggest that it is in any way compromised. The subsequent section may find that rhythmic pulse of affirmation, but soon the voices start to lose their coherence again - at least as far as words and rhythm are concerned - and the electronic interference takes over to a level of dissonance that comes close to feedback. Low feedback that eventually subsides, the emotions checked, a reassertion of control, the work ending with the formation of a new realisation and truth that needs to be similarly confronted and accommodated, the single word 'you'.

External links: Ed Bennett, Queen's University Belfast

Irvine - Where We Bury the Bones (Belfast, 2026)

Brian Irvine - Where We Bury the Bones

Dumbworld, 2026

Sinead Hayes, John McIlduff, Megan O'Neill, Stephanie Dufresne, Cristian Emmanuel Dirocie

The Lyric Theatre, Belfast - 11th March 2026

Where do you start? The last time I began a review with those words was in my years as a film reviewer having just watched a screening of Terrence Malik's film The Tree of Life. It was less a sense of bewilderment at what I had seen on the screen than a question provoked by the film's extraordinary scope and ambition. A bewildering overreach for some, utterly sublime as far as I was concerned, I saw it as an attempt by a visual artist to put across something that is impossible to put entirely into words alone. For similar reasons it seems an appropriate way to start a review of Where We Bury the Bones, a multi-disciplinary work created by Dumbworld team of John McIlduff & Kate Heffernan with music composed by Brian Irvine who, with an orchestra and a singer, have a few more tools at their disposal to approach a challenging subject.

The title has ominous connotations for the people of this island and I imagine it evokes similar horrors for people in many other places that have seen war and violence in recent decades, and indeed in the world today. That's not what the piece is about, although it could certainly be seen to be a part of it, as the work starts with the discovery of various artefacts during an archaeological dig in Kilkenny, one of which is a bone. One of the first considerations is to identify whether it is a human bone and to look for any signs of trauma, indications of an injury or violent death, as that would be the beginning of a story, a way of building a picture of a life. As an archaeologist René, in an onscreen message, considers that there are limitations on how much scientific enquiry can imagine, and wonders what an artist would make of such material. That's the beginning of Where We Bury the Bones.

Well, that's one starting point but we may actually need to go back further than that. Where indeed do you start to consider the circumstances that lead to an ancient bone being found in this part of the world? A narrative description has already set the scene, considering the historical formation of the valley, building up a picture through our understanding of the geology, chemistry, behaviours and patterns in nature, the valley hewn by ice and shaped by the flow of the river, but there is more than one starting point here, there are layers of history and the flow of time has also contributed to the picture. These are marked out by a number of musical and theatrical layers including a sung voice, technical and historical data feeds, dramatic presentation, a music score played by an 8-piece orchestra, dance movements, and a live projection of an actual scale model of the landscape in question.

"Where do you start?" I admit does apply to some extent with grappling with understanding what the work is about. Where We Bury the Bones started as a commission for the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2025, the work stemming from the questions that arise with the discovery of a single bone unearthed during archaeological excavations in Kilkenny’s Abbey Quarter. So the work is 'site specific' in a way, but evidently it has a much wider remit and perspective, so is indeed hard to know where to start. As a work of many layers, there are similarly many layers and ways to approach the work. Words are just one way, but that alone can never be entirely sufficient even if Megan O'Neill, dressed in white, appears to give voice to the bone itself. Interacting with the other elements however, how the music speaks and how bare technical facts meet with lived human experience - past, present and looking to the future - allows the viewer to piece together their own story and indeed their own part in the story.

The past is evoked in snatches of traditional Irish music, some the on-stage orchestra interacting with an on-screen musician, the present with the creation of a skateboard park that is overlaid on the site. On a voice-over, some of the skaters testify to its importance to the here and now, a place where community comes together but also a place where new stories are made and another layer of history and archaeological mystery may be laid down for the future. The scope of what is brought together over the running time of one hour is tremendous and Brian Irvine's music has a large part to play in creating that environment, creating the musical landscape to bring it all together. As a composer Irvine has never been tired down to a single style of music but uses whatever instruments and means of expression are necessary for any given work. His score for this work has a 'voice' without telling a ‘story’, the theatrical chamber orchestration reminding me of Louis Andriessen, but with a directness and purpose of its own, anchored in the landscape in its unearthing of people and history but liberated in the flow of time; past, present and future layered. 

There is no narrative line to tell you any of this. Where We Bury the Bones doesn't rely on theatrical conventions or familiar musical reference points or motifs, it doesn't settle for fitting it to preconceived ideas or tell you what you should be taking away from this. It does what it should do which is to let the medium determine the best way of getting the ideas across, building a picture, allowing the multi-disciplinary elements to create their own connections as well as creating the space for the individual in the audience to place themselves within it. If you come out of seeing an production wondering what it was all about, that is much better than having answers handed to you. In the case of the scope and ambition of what this work is about, answers would be impossible anyway in an hour-long performance, but it does nonetheless give you everything you need to think more deeply about our place in this world for a long time afterwards, along with the realisation that we take too much of it for granted.

External links: Dumbworld

Weill - Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (London, 2026)

Kurt Weill & Berthold Brecht - Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

English National Opera, 2026

André de Ridder, Jamie Manton, Rosie Aldridge, Kenneth Kellogg, Mark Le Brocq, Simon O'Neill, Danielle de Niese, Alex Otterburn, Elgan Llŷr Thomas, David Shipley, Zwakele Tshabalala, Susanna Tudor-Thomas, Joanne Appleby, Ella Kirkpatrick, Adam Taylor, Damon Gould, Deborah Davison, Sophie Goldrick, Claire Mitcher

The Coliseum, London - 18th February 2026

Some operas make their mark and are soon forgotten, others only reveal their brilliance in revival after centuries, and then there are some who despite their troubled origins seem to always have an enduring ability to remain relevant and connect with whatever is going on in the world at any given time. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny certainly has a significant social and political stance that arises out of the time of its composition in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic during the ascent of the Nazis, but its powerful legacy goes deeper than that to the extent that it could just as easily be an opera written for our own times. Most evidently it's there in Brecht's fearlessly confrontational subject matter and libretto, but Weill's music is just an important a factor in how that message is put across and undoubtedly the strength of the message and its ability to speak just as powerfully to us today makes it feel like an opera for our times as well as its own time. And, you suspect, for the times ahead. Watch out for that giant tornado heading our way.

That said, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, from my experience of productions at Madrid, Covent Garden and Aix-en-Provence is a tough opera to stage and get right. As one of the iconoclasts of the theatrical stage, Brecht has a lot to do with making it problematic for any director who wants to put their own stamp on the material, but the subject itself is one that requires a balance of subtlety and lack of subtlety at the right points. The production for the English National Opera directed by Jamie Manton and set designer Milla Clarke is one of the best efforts I've seen at meeting those challenges. There is no attempt to glamorise the show, no reliance on operatic clichés or clever ideas. The concept of the city emerging from the container box of the lorry that the three on-the-run criminals arrive in as the foundation for their philosophy to build a city (a nation) where everything is permitted as long as you have money is not far removed from the Royal Opera House version back in 2015, but it ties in nicely with the Brechtian method of maintaining the distancing awareness of the work's theatricality, and the production remains true to that idea throughout.

There is good reason for that, of course, as Brecht and Weill don't want you to be thinking this is just a night out at the opera - they have other intentions and would rather implicate the audience into a self-questioning of the kind of society in which they themselves are participant: a society of unbridled and deregulated capitalism, consumerism and neoliberalism in a downward death loop spiral. I noticed that the comments of the director and designer and the programme notes are somewhat reticent about mentioning any of these words or about the opera or the production making any political statement, not even making any reference to the obvious parallels we can see in the USA related to the Epstein controversy, political populism and the current US administration's attitude towards the forces of justice taking precedence over law, instead preferring to see the opera as a condemnation of unbridled "power" and "pleasure". It's far more than that, but it's a sad sign of the times where artists have to be careful what they say (Wim Wenders most recently taking just such a controversial stance at the Berlin Film Festival), but thankfully all of what needs to be said is apparent in the stage design and production, and most significantly in the power of the work itself.

It's a production that doesn't draw attention to its set designs. Everything is kept relatively simple; a backdrop displays slogans or principles that society adheres to, even if it doesn't say it openly, in its obeisance to the power of money. The only law here of course is that everything is permitted and you are beyond the law as long as you have money. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of that - or at least the most unsettling aspect that jumps out today of the many social indulgences that the opera skewers - occurs in the final act where 'justice' comes under scrutiny and it becomes apparent that we are indeed living in times where you can kill with impunity if its suits the agenda of those the money and power who feel their authority and position being threatened. God forbid that people with no money - the greatest sin in this society - dare to think they have any right to say what they think. That seems to be the way it works in America at the minute but it's an in-built feature of our own system. And who needs tornados to wreak destruction when we’re doing a good job of destroying the world ourselves?

No, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is not a comforting opera, but it has an important message for our times if we are willing to listen and if someone is brave enough to put it on in full awareness of its power and how to get it across. So credit to the ENO's new Music Director Designate André de Ridder and the ENO, since I'm sure that the Arts Council would like to see the company play it safe. Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is not a safe choice, yet it was a complete sell out (box office-wise) at the Coliseum. That's immensely hearting for those who love the venue, the institution and opera.

Musically this one was a marvel. I've heard this opera many times on a screen and on a disc, but it seems that it's only live in the theatre that the range and richness of the score be can be fully appreciated, as well as its power to deliver the message. The Threepenny Opera by Brecht and Weill is more music theatre, but Mahagonny is truly operatic in scope, if not in any conventional manner. It was clear that de Ridder was revelling in conducting this and you can see and hear why: it sounded magnificent. The singing - well, it's not the kind of work that you go to see to judge the merits of the principal opera singers, but it has its challenges nonetheless, particularly when sung in English. The Wagnerian tenor Simon O'Neill was the standout here for me as Jimmy McIntyre, but Danielle de Niese also made a good impression, giving something of a glamorous star turn as Jenny Smith. Rosie Aldridge, Kenneth Kellogg and Mark Le Brocq gave solid performances as Leokadja Begbick, Trinity Moses and Fatty the Bookkeeper. The chorus were excellent.

Musically and theatrically this production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny struck home. It seemed to reconcile the contradictions between Brechtian distancing and the emotional involvement of Kurt Weill's wondrous score, working with the head and the heart. Act III in particular did everything it was supposed to do, not just delivering on what had been established in the first two acts, but bringing those realisations and their relevance home. Coming back to this work after a number of years and seeing the work performed stripped back to its essentials, it was something of a revelation to realise just how much modern opera owes to this work with its willingness to stretch boundaries, its refusal to accept limitations of musical conventions and taste as well as its fearlessly confrontational subject matter. Seen in this light, it must be considered alongside Berg's Lulu as one of the defining works of the 20th century.

External links: English National Opera

Production stills: Tristram Kenton

Rossini - Torvaldo e Dorliska (Pesaro, 2006)

Giaochino Rossini - Torvaldo e Dorliska

Rossini Opera Festival, 2006

Victor Pablo Pérez, Mario Martone, Darina Takova, Michele Pertusi, Francesco Meli, Bruno Praticò, Jeanette Fischer, Simone Alberghini

Dynamic DVD

As far as Rossini operas go Torvaldo e Dorliska is a fairly obscure one, but then for composer of 40 operas of which less than a handful are regularly performed, there are many places for a work like this to get lost, not least since it was overshadowed by Rossini's subsequent opera, Il barbiere di Sigivlia. It's not surprising that it's been overshadowed, forgotten and intentionally ignored because Torvaldo e Dorliska is not a particularly notable work, one moreover that falls into that tricky category of opera semiseria, blending high melodrama with comedy.

Even as a 'rescue opera' it's not a work that is meant to be taken seriously or offer any political commentary. Beethoven's only opera written in that style, Fidelio, is one of the few of such works that have a serious intent, one that the composer laboured over incessantly to get right. In general the rescue opera has one purpose and that's to provide high drama, passionate expressions of fidelity between lovers and their determination to overcome the odds of the evil powers stacked against them. And, in the process, give the singers challenging arias in heroic roles to demonstrate their ability. Torvaldo e Dorlinda is designed to do just that and Rossini delivers a capable work in that style, exhibiting his usual familiar mannerisms and qualities, but the work itself feels perfunctory and too tied to convention.

As far as the plot goes, it keeps things simple and to the point with little nuance and minimal distraction from the driving purpose of the work. The evil Duke Ordow has struck down his love rival Torvaldo, who is married to the beautiful Polish girl Dorliska. Dorliska, looking for her husband inadvertently wanders into Ordow Castle (as you do) and into the clutches of Ordow. Torvaldo, needless to say, despite the searches of Duke and his men, proves to be still very much alive. He arrives at the castle in disguise and is helped by the Duke's manservant Giorgio, who has no great love for his master, to gain entry so that he can save his wife or meet with death. Ah, cruel destiny! The libretto is littered with such arch proclamations, exaggerated stage directions, heaving bosoms, sneering villains, heroic stands and dramatic swooning. It's classic classical opera.

It fairly romps along on that basis, despite a two-and-a-half hour running time that labours every scene so that the full drama can be wrung out of it. It has a fair amount of routine scoring, but it would be a mistake to think that the conventional plotting and by-the-numbers structure, not to mention the unfashionable and rarely successful semiseria blend of melodrama and comic interludes point to a slight and unsophisticated opera. As Rossini's 18th opera, composed immediately before Il barbiere di Siviglia, there are still many enjoyable features to be found in Torvaldo e Dorliska; the composer’s ability to set the drama to music with style and some flair is fully apparent. There are the usual fast tongue-twisting passages, here combined with duets and trios all sung simultaneously interweaving at different speeds. A lot is to show off and thrill, but it isn't entirely divorced from the cross purposes intent of the drama.

The scenes for the drama place no great demands on this staging of Torvaldo e Dorliska for the 2006 Rossini Opera Festival (who else would perform this opera?) and it's effectively directed by Mario Martone with some flair. The stage presents interior and exterior as one, a rise of wooded area leading down to an iron gate that marks the entrance to the Duke's castle front stage. The Teatro Rossini in Pesaro is a small theatre, so the drama is opened out further onto the theatre on a narrow platform surrounding the orchestra pit, with some entrances taken through the parterre side doors. Most importantly, the direction plays it straight, not seeking to impose any misguided interpretation or modernisation of the medieval setting, retaining swords and armour, not guns and military combat uniforms. It's a simple choice but effective as any such change might suggest not taking it seriously - or taking it too seriously - as that would totally undermine the intent of the work. It's a semi-serious semiseria opera production then, which sounds about right, recognising that is purely operatic drama.

That goes for the performers who are all excellent; Darina Takova the dramatic soprano, Francesco Meli the steadfast high tenor and Michele Pertusi the evil baritone (a speciality of Pertusi). Bruno Praticò has a substantial secondary role as Giorgio and makes the most of it. Jeanette Fischer and Simone Alberghini have minor secondary roles as Carlotta and Ormondo to lighten the tone of the opera and provide some breathing space for the plot and the principals, which they do well. The Teatro Rossini seems an ideal theatre to present a work like this, and the essential Italian character is brought out beautifully by no less than the Flanders orchestra and chorus of the Opera Vlaanderen conducted by Victor Pablo Pérez with vigour and warmth.

The Dynamic DVD release of Torvaldo e Dorliska - reviewed here from a 14-DVD box set Rossini Serio (e Semiserio) - has the inherent limitations of standard definition, but the presentation is more than adequate. Spread across 2 discs, there are a few less than smooth continuity transitions between filming on different nights, but nothing too distracting other than one crude effort to block out a cameraman in one of the boxes with heavy post production masking. Having commandeered a number of the boxes for cameras and props, it seems that those displaced audience members have been moved to the wings side stage. They have a nice view, close to the action on stage, but it looks like they can't see much that goes on beyond the pit. The uncompressed LPCM 2.0 and the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks are excellent, capturing all the colour of the singing, with detail and good separation in the mixing of the orchestra.

Stockhausen - Montag aus Licht (Paris, 2025)

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Montag aus Licht

Le Balcon, 2025

Maxime Pascal, Silvia Costa, Michiko Takahashi, Marie Picaut, Clara Barbier Serrano, Josué Miranda, Safir Behloul, Ryan Veillet, Florent Baffi, Elio Massignat, Iris Zerdoud, Joséphine Besançon, Alice Caubit, Pia Davila, Alphonse Cemin Claire Luquiens, Bianca Chillemi, Sarah Kim, Alain Muller, Haga Ratovo, Chae Um Kim, Akino Kamiya, Mathieu Adam

Philharmonie de Paris, - 29th November 2025

As one of the most ambitious works in the history of opera - ambitious to the point of parts of it being virtually unstageable - totalling approximately 29 hours over seven operas, the specialist contemporary music company Le Balcon nonetheless continue undaunted by the challenge of producing the entire seven day cycle of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Licht, a work that "attempts to recreate the world through the existence, union and confrontation of three angels: Michael, Eva and Lucifer". Not necessarily in order of composition or by day of the week, the company have already undertaken productions of Donnerstag (Sunday), Samstag (Saturday), Dienstag (Tuesday) and Freitag (Friday) one year at a time, each opera bringing their own unique character and presenting different musical and theatrical challenges. This year, after excerpts were performed first at Lille, the company presented - for one night only - a fully staged production of Montag aus Licht (Monday from Light) at the Philharmonie in Paris.

As the opening first day of the seven day cycle, Montag serves a specific function distinct from the unions and conflicts that take place between Eva, Michael and Lucifer over much of the remainder of the Licht cycle. Montag is dedicated to Eve (Colour: Green, Celestial body: Moon, Spiritual Qualities: Ceremony and Magic), the mother of humanity, and as such it does have something of a ritualistic ceremonial quality. All of the Licht operas have ritualistic elements to some extent, but this one is more celebratory and perhaps even more accessible than the more experimental and eccentric episodes in the subsequent parts of the complete work. But it's all relative and even though less narrative driven, Montag aus Licht has its share of eccentricities, particularly in the opening scenes of the first Act. Freitag is going to be hard to beat on that front, but there is unquestionably more and stranger yet to come in the remaining sections.

It's perhaps best to see Montag as an introduction into the world of Licht, since essentially it does deal with the creation of humanity over which the battle between Lucifer and Michael plays out in the following 'days', introducing an architectural musical structure, themes and motifs. With those figures largely absent from the first opera, the focus is then on the central figure of Eve, who gives birth to humanity, the seven days of the week - and in essence the seven days of the opera Licht - in an elaborate evocation of mood, ceremony and celebration. But even that foundational event is not as straightforward as it sounds. If Act I seems bizarre and silly (your mileage with Stockhausen's humour and pomposity may vary) it's only because the Eve's first birthing doesn't work out terribly well, producing semi-human, semi-animal hybrids and seven dwarfs. After an hour and a half of the first Act parturition, the enterprise is deemed a failure and Lucifer comes out and orders everyone back inside and start over again.

Act II by contrast is a work of absolute transcendental beauty. In most conventional operas the combination and cross-pollination of words, music, drama, singing and performance is essential to create the magical alchemy of opera, but Stockhausen has his own unique voice and recipe for opera and Act II of Licht is the perfect example of how effective his approach can be in bringing all the elements together to create something totally unique and otherworldly. Narrative is not important here - there are few words spoken or sung - but rather the essence of what takes place in Act II (Eve's fertilisation and second birthing) is expressed in the beautiful polyphonic music written for synthesisers, piano, flute and basset horns combining with lighting, staging, ritual movements, noises and singing with huge choral resources. 

Again with Stockhausen, it's an all-encompassing surround-sound theatrical experience, with a green illuminated girl's chorus descending from the back and sides of the hall to the stage and child boy singers on stage representing the seven days, the musicians - apart from the synthesiser players - on stage as key figures in the drama. Act III then expands on the growth of humanity, as the children of Eve take on new characteristics under the influence of a flute player called Ave playing seductive music to capture and abduct them. The children grow up, transform into birds and have their own children, the opera taking on the expansive nature of this in its progress.

As I've suggested, not only does Stockhausen present Montag as the introductory opera that heralds the first day and the struggle for what is to take place the rest of the 'week', but it is also the seed that sets out and gives birth to Licht as a cycle of seven operas. It's here that the characteristics of the days are defined, the nature of what will take place on each day in the cycle of seven operas, laying out a manifesto for one of the most - I'd be inclined to say the very most - ambitious creations in the history of opera. Montag is the cornerstone that lays out the whole scale and ambition of Stockhausen's vision; the philosophy and whole musical experimentation, the creative imagination, the invention, the whole deranged madness of an enterprise that is simply unimaginable that anyone else could conceive of it. The scale of Montag aus Licht alone is just breathtaking, resulting in an extraordinary performance that is quite unlike anything else.

And as such, even this single work is a formidable prospect for any single opera company to produce, let alone aim to undertake to complete the entire cycle and - and this is the crucial part - to do it justice and as close as possible to the intentions of the composer. If you've ever seen the stage directions for these operas (the previous reviews will give you a very small taste of what they involve), you'll realise just how difficult that is to achieve, and yet - to judge by those previous productions and the experience of Montag here - extraordinarily effective when done right. Unquestionably that's down to the choices made by Le Balcon's musical director Maxime Pascal and stage director Silvia Costa, to the virtuosity of the musicians and the professionalism and perfectionism of ensuring that every note and sung chorus makes its force fully felt.

Stockhausen's working methods necessitate a different way of thinking about opera performance, and it's incumbent on the audience to submit to the idea that much has to be felt rather than understood. Even so, the question must be posed whether such wild experimentation, such extravagance and adherence to the meticulously detailed and eccentric instructions laid out in the 'libretto' for each work is not just too ambitious, too experimental, too abstract and too over-elaborate, its scale too vast to be able to say anything meaningful about humanity and simultaneously too restrictive to allow personal interpretation. What is undeniable however is that Stockhausen himself is part of the necessary equation of the works; his life and ideas tied up inextricably in the content, in the form, and that must be retained in order for the works to achieve their full expression.

What is extraordinary about Montag aus Licht - and in how successful Le Balcon are at bringing those essential qualities across - is that warmth revealed in it that is perhaps not so evident elsewhere in Licht. It's rich in melody and its love for humanity and yet there is not a single lead singing role in the work or a true human figure who is anything more than a representative symbol. Eve is little more than an idea or a concept, defined as a green light that suffuses the work. In the original stage directions she is represented by a sculpture and little more than a birth canal, changed here to have a live pregnant woman at the top of a lighthouse tower giving birth to the world. She remains an idea or an ideal, the choice here not changing that, letting the music and singing reveal her love to seek to create a beautiful world, a humanity that is loving and harmonious. That is reflected mainly in the vast choral resources employed in the work, put on so spectacularly with amazing presence and ability by the choruses of young singers and the musicians.

Like all of the works presented in the Licht cycle so far, there are testing scenes and moments that drag over the almost five hours of the evening. Act III is very repetitive, there are scenes that are obscure and bizarre, musical touches that seem wilfully experimental and yet everything feels like right and is contributing to something greater that will feed into and be explored more deeply in the days/operas to come. Nothing about this work is conventional, but that is the intention: to recreate and reimagine the world from scratch, from beginning to the end in a cycle of repetition, and envision a cosmic utopia where music will save us all. There is nothing else in opera that comes close to resembling it and indeed - the complete works of Wagner notwithstanding - nothing else that even comes close to the scale and ambition in its expansion of new musical ideas and its philosophical or mystical endeavour.

External links: Le Balcon, Philharmonie de Paris

Delius - The Magic Fountain (Wexford, 2025)

Frederick Delius - The Magic Fountain

Wexford Festival Opera, 2025

Francesco Cilluffo, Christopher Luscombe, Dominick Chenes, Axelle Saint-Cirel, Kamohelo Tsotetsi, Meilir Jones, Seamus Brady

O'Reilly Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford - 23rd October 2025

After a previous year of operas dedicated to humour and triviality, this year's Wexford Festival Opera programme suitably went for a wider balance that took in 18th, 19th and an almost 20th century opera, but covered many other centuries and millennia in the period settings of those works. There was also a measure of lightness of touch in the treatment of the overall theme of Myths & Legends, but there was a rather more solemn and reverential tone evident in Delius’s The Magic Fountain. That was clearly suggested by the spiritual awakening message of the work itself, and it consequently received a similarly respectful treatment by the director Christopher Luscombe and conductor Francesco Cilluffo. It's an approach that suits the opera and its post-Wagnerian atmosphere, evoking Tristan und Isolde in its quest for the eternal, but it couldn't help but feel a little dry and ponderous at the same time.

The opera even opens with a kind of Flying Dutchman legend in reverse. In the 16th century, aboard a ship crossing the Atlantic, Don Juan Solano dreams of finding the mythical fountain of youth and the possibility of living forever. His ship however is stuck somewhere off the coast of Florida, to the consternation of the crew. When a sudden storm dutifully casts him ashore, destroying his ship and crew in the process, it is not an adoring 'Senta' Solano meets, but a young native woman called Watawa, who does not welcome this foreign intruder. Most white men come to their lands to pillage, destroying everything in their search for gold. Watawa expects no different from Solano and his quest for the magical fountain.

But in some ways, the white man is indeed expecting it to come easy for him and have it handed to him on a plate. The tribal seer Talum Hadjo warns him however that he hasn't put in the hours of contemplation, preparation and understanding of what it means to live eternal youth, and that his goal will elude him. There is a message here about respect and veneration for those who are seen as being 'closer to nature', but there is good reason to think so and much truth in that sentiment. Those who have lived destroying and fighting nature would not have the maturity or understanding of those who have passed down knowledge from generations, respecting the power of nature, using it to their benefit without exploiting it.

The dream of finding a more closer spiritual way of living is one that appealed to Delius. Sent to Florida on his father's business managing an orange plantation in 1884, the nascent composer instead used the experience to soak up the musicality of the spirituals of the African-American slave workers, the sounds and the people of the land, as well as reportedly enjoying the favours of the local native girls. The experience clearly marked him deeply and his own quest to express those discoveries in his music led to a totally unique approach and distinctive musical expression. In The Magic Fountain there is a sense of momentarily glimpsing a sense of truth and enlightenment and constantly searching to regain it, but it remains as elusive as trying to regain innocence.

That sensibility is indeed revered in the music and the story, so it's unsurprising that the stage direction and musical production seek to adhere as closely as it can to the original intentions of the work and let it express it own truths. There's no attempt to make what is abstract and symbolic real or realistic, but rather through the music seeking to express or touch on the possibility of deeper enlightenment, a pure love, of the value of striving for an unattainable ideal. On a simple level there are only a small number of roles and no elaborate need for reinterpretation. The music is the key to the work and all the work is done there in the Wexford production under the baton of Francesco Cilluffo. There is little that is conventional in the orchestration, yet - as if indeed the composer has found a truer form of expression - little that is complicated either. The music buoys you along, sweeping, fluttering, imitating or evoking the sounds of earth, of nature, of an inner spiritual character or of a yearning to reach it.

Simon Higlett's set designs likewise kept it simple in line with director Christopher Luscombe's sober direction, not trying to overstate or overawe while the opera itself and its music remained understated. The production is at its most elaborate on the early scene on the ship, but once in Florida everything is stripped back to bold imagery of fronds, lights, stars and moonlight, with only the scene of Solano's meeting with the seer Talum Hadjo and a sequence native girls dancing presenting more elaborate scenes, neither of them entirely escaping an air of stereotypical imagery. The magical fountain of youth, when discovered, is also a little disappointing, looking like a tilted paddling pool with strands of glittering tinsel above it. On the other hand, it served the purpose of it being something symbolic, not representative of a physical place but an ideal where Solano and Watawa reach a mutual understanding, one however that cannot be achieved on any earthly plane. That ship (or plane) has long since sailed.

Composed between 1893-95, like many of Frederick Delius's works until championed by Thomas Beecham, The Magic Fountain was not fully staged until almost one hundred years later. As an opera, while it appears to aspire to the heights of Tristan und Isolde, it nonetheless achieves its own kind of spiritual awakening or integrity by finding a balance between the earthly paradise and a spiritual one in its music and voices. The voices have a freedom to give expression of what they are looking for, without being tied to any high-flown ideals or compositional technicalities, finding their voice rather in the sense the harmony in and with the music. The two lead roles were taken well by Dominick Chenes and Axelle Saint Cirel with bass Kamohelo Tsotetsi as Wataka's father Wapanacki, grounding the proceedings with a more earthy sensibility and gravity.

There is no question that The Magic Fountain is a very distinctive work and one from a composer largely and unjustly neglected, an absolute treat for those seeking out rare operas worthy of greater recognition. Wexford Festival Opera certainly handled this one with the respect it deserved, but there was a feeling that it was maybe too sombre and respectful in its 16th century setting and lacked a meaningful context for the conflicts of cultural and ideological difference that Solano seeks to resolve. Whether it's the work itself that doesn't quite meet the elevated expectations it sets out for itself - as beautiful and enchanting as it is - or whether the production could have benefitted from a little more adventurous interpretation is open to question, but it was a wonderful opera to experience on the National Opera House stage nonetheless.

External links: Wexford Festival Opera, Wexford Festival Opera Streaming on RTE Lyric FM

Zemlinsky - Der Zwerg (Wexford, 2025)

Alexander von Zemlinsky - Der Zwerg 

Wexford Festival Opera, 2025

Christopher Knopp, Chris Moran, Charne Rochford, Eleri Gwilym, Charlotte Baker, Ross Cumming, Victoria Harley, Olivia Carrell, Erin Fflur, Cerys Macallister, Heather Sammon, Eleanor O'Driscoll, Camilla Seale

Jerome Hynes Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford - 23rd October 2025

Strangely, Alexander von Zemlinsky seems to have been one of those early 20th century opera composers who have slipped into obscurity and have yet to gain a true foothold or recognition for their work. That of course was the fate of many German and Austrian composers around the first half of the 20th century, partly through the rapidly evolving changes in music, of which Zemlinsky played an not unacknowledged role, but like many of his contemporaries who fell out of favour with the political establishment, it was mostly due to him being Jewish. Of all Zemlinsky's works Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) appears to be the representative work that he is known for, and in some ways it's a suitable work that defines to a larger extent his character and reputation.

While many of the composers and works deemed Entartete (degenerate) by the Nazis have enjoyed some manner of reappraisal in recent decades, Zemlinsky and Der Zwerg remain largely unknown and rarely performed. It's a work however that fits in perfectly with the new ideals and ideas - both musical and philosophical - that were floating around at the time, particularly in Vienna. Richard Strauss issued in that break with tradition with Salome, but many other works by Schreker, Braunfels and Korngold all explore the darker side of human psychology, a loss of innocence and a recognition of the ugliness and brutality that lies within humanity. Such works are often seen as a sign of the times and somewhat premonitory of the direction of the political climate, albeit dressed up in lush orchestration and extravagantly decadent plots.

The most celebrated and emblematic opera of this period is indeed Richard Strauss's Salome. Based on the play by Oscar Wilde, the Irish-British playwright would prove to be an outspoken figure in giving voice to dark hypocrisy and the depths of depravity in respectable society that were waiting to be given licence to be brought to the surface. Zemlinsky was also drawn to Wilde’s dark fairy tales, composing the short one-act opera Der Zwerg based on The Birthday of the Infanta, to be presented alongside another Wilde work Eine florentinische Tragödie (A Florentine Tragedy). As well as being an expression of those ideas about the ugly side of human nature, Der Zwerg is in some respects also filled with a sense of self-loathing felt by Zemlinsky as someone who didn't fit in with the Germanic ideal, either racially or physically.

The story is about a dwarf who is introduced into the court of the Infanta (an image inspired by Goya’s famous painting) as one of her courtiers. The dwarf however is unaware of how others see him, as he has never seen his reflection in a mirror (other than glimpses of a monster tormenting him in the flash of a blade). Having never seen himself as he is and how he looks, he considers himself a grand heroic figure. He is laughed at and ridiculed by the court, but the Infanta sees him as a plaything, indulging his delusions until he falls in love with her, only for the princess to then cruelly reveal the truth to him. The dwarf dies of a broken heart, clutching the white rose that the Infanta gave to him, but no one really feels any pity for the fool.

The history of the work and the period in which it was composed, 1922, are intriguing, inviting those interested to see in it something of Zemlinsky being rejected by Alma Schlinder, who described him as "a hideous dwarf" and then go on to marry Gustav Mahler. Zemlinsky initially asked Franz Schreker to set The Birthday of the Infanta, for which he would write the libretto (Schreker having already created a dance-pantomime Der Geburtstag der Infantin), but this developed into the similarly themed opera Die Gezeichneten with a libretto written wholly by Schreker himself. What is also interesting is that similar themes about the changing society and its troubling elements were also being explored in another art form, the German Expressionist cinema of Robert Weine's Dr. Caligari (1920) and Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922), and that is the direction that director Chris Moran chooses to illustrate this production for Wexford Festival Opera as part of their 'Pocket Opera' programme.

It's a style that works exceptionally well with the nature of the work. Lavishly orchestrated, the story of Der Zwerg has a similar florid quality to Salome without Wilde's Symbolist trappings in that work, the dark fairy tale rather suiting the absurdist Gothic tone adopted here. The production even included flickering silent cinema intertitles, showing the shadow of a Max Schreck Nosferatu-like figure in shadows on the wall to reflect the idea of horror and deformity rather than dwarfism. The court are monstrously panstick painted with heavy black eye makeup and dark lipstick. As with Wilde's story it's all heightened and mannered, matching the sometimes jagged rhythms of Zemlinsky's score performed here in piano reduction by musical director Christopher Knopp.

As with any reduced score production there is no place to hide here and the singers all proved to be more than capable of delivering the intensity of the work, despite the lack of its grand orchestration. Charne Rochford in particular put across the intensity and depth of the dwarf's heroic delusion and fervent love for the Infanta. Eleri Gwilym's Infanta was perfectly characterised and sung, disdainful, detached and self-absorbed but not to the extent that she can't take time to dispense some wilful cruelty to those around her. Charlotte Baker as her attendant Ghita also came across very well as did Ross Cumming as the Chamberlain-storyteller.

There didn't appear to be any attempt to draw any political or personal message out of the work, but Der Zwerg - much like Salome - has its own inner power and horror and works perfectly on its own terms as a strong piece of opera. There is limited opportunity for any ambitious messaging anyway in a reduced small scale production (certainly not the kind of resources seen in the spectacle of Deidamia on the National Opera House main stage the previous night), but yet again, as she demonstrated also with the Pocket Opera production of La tragédie de Carmen in this year's festival, Lisa Krügel's effective set and costume designs were outstanding.

External links: Wexford Festival Opera