Jennifer Walshe - MARS
Irish National Opera, 2025
Elaine Kelly, Tom Creed, Jennifer Walshe, Nina Guo, Jade Phoenix, Sarah Richmond, Doreen Curran
Abbey Theatre, Dublin - 7th August 2025
It's high time that we had a full-length opera from Jennifer Walshe, internationally recognised as one of Ireland's most original contemporary musicians and performers. Working primarily with the voice, it had to be a natural progression and there were signs of her heading in that direction with her short work Libris Solar (2020) for Irish National Opera's 20 Shots of Opera and Ireland: A Dataset (2020), both presented during the COVID lockdown. Describing the latter piece as a 'radiophonic play', it was however a total musical-theatrical experience, albeit one unable to be performed before a live audience; an opera in all but name. It may not have been conventional but nothing Walshe does is conventional. MARS, her new work for Irish National Opera, employs many of the same techniques used in Ireland: A Dataset, taking a theme, exploring it from a number of angles rather than as a linear plot, and of course providing the usual injection of humour and not taking things too seriously.
Finding her voice, so to speak, at a time when there are serious wider contemporary issues to consider, the composer has worked with writer Mark O'Connell to develop a libretto for an opera on a more global scale, or perhaps one even more expansive that that. MARS takes us beyond the confines of the planet with a crew of four women astronauts in order to get away from consider the petty problems of the world from a distance, only to find that we bring our petty problems with us. And not just the 'petty problems' but the big ones that we can see troubling us in the present day. If you think there is danger in the power being placed in the hands of a small group of wealthy individuals with authoritarian leanings and their own space programmes, imagine what will happen when other planets come within reaching distance...
As far as it concerns the four women on the Buckminster on a nine month journey to Mars, the future is under new ownership, and that includes ownership of the crew just as they are about to touch down to explore the planet for underground water supplies to support the colony that has already been established on the planet. The company or international consortium that was financing the mission have been taken over by a corporation owned by 'tech bro' Axel Parchment, who has some 'innovative' ideas for developing and expanding the colony. Sally, Valentina, Judith and Svetlana have revised orders and a new mission; Mars needs women. But, in-between sending AI assisted messages and videos back home to raise the morale and gain new recruits, the crew make an important discovery that may enable them to take control (and control over their own bodies) back again.
The situation as outlined would seem to present the opportunity for some thoughtful contemplation on the essence of humanity, on the need to explore, stretch the boundaries of what we consider to be the human experience to incorporate new developments in technology and society; and to consider what to do when things go wrong, because things always go wrong. And indeed it does in MARS and Walshe does take a realistic response to those questions, but perhaps not initially in the way you might expect; like how these four adventurers react to the critical error that occurs when the USB drive containing the complete Criterion Collection set of movies is left behind and they have is Shrek 3 and Seasons 3 to 6 of The Housewives of Beverley Hills to get them through the isolation. It can't get much worse than that surely?
It would be a mistake to take it all too seriously, but it's more than just a joke. All too much of what happens here is recognisable in the almost unrecognisable world we are waking up to every morning, with developments in technology and AI advancing rapidly every day, distorting our familiar sense of reality, with wealthy individuals accruing more money, power and influence and exerting that control through populist appeal and dubious libertarian ideologies. Others might take a more conventional path through the challenges that face an all-woman space crew on a future expedition to Mars given this current direction of travel, but this is Jennifer Walshe and she takes the Jennifer Walshe way. Which is to say that the work is made up of a series of sketches and routines, playful in nature but with a little edge of satire.
There are some spoken work dialogues, some funny episodes, but mainly a lot of playing around with the opportunities suggested by the out of familiar world setting. Aside from the template established in Ireland: A Dataset, some sequences reminded me of Glass and Wilson's Einstein on the Beach, just simply revelling in the purity of the musical-theatrical situation with no concern of 'advancing the plot', emulating floating in zero gravity, running through wordless vocalisations and blending them with electronic sounds that also bring to mind Stockhausen's Licht, with a lament on a planetary exploration that seems to echo Ligeti's Atmosphères from 2001: A Space Odyssey. All of this is of course filtered through Walshe's sense of anarchic humour, with a few mordant swipes at popular culture and populist politics.
What is abundantly evident, even in the least serious of moments, is that Walshe has explored everything related to Mars exploration and even incorporates the sounds of space in the instrumentation through the use of synthesisers, in addition to more conventional instruments making unconventional sounds. Co-directed between Tom Creed and Walshe herself, the stage production - all credit to the incredible team that pulled this together - does exactly the same and it is genuinely groundbreaking in how the medium is also the message. Walshe has taken advantage of AI before and used it in Ireland: A Dataset, but the way the music, the sounds, the use of videos, live hand-held cameras, live distortion of voices are not just used for satire and parody, but to emphasise how much technology can be used and messages distorted. There is a lot going on and some of it just flashes by, but it all works alongside the plot and the content, an integral and equal part of the conception of the piece.
Which not to say that the human element of the work is relegated by the use of technology, otherwise that would negate the point of the work. Nina Guo, Jade Phoenix, Sarah Richmond and Doreen Curran are just superb, totally engaging in all-round performances that require acting, timing, collaboration and, despite necessarily being microphoned for mixing with the orchestra - all are experienced and brilliant opera singers that have their range fully put to the test. Those moments are used well and to terrific effect. Following its opening at Galway International Arts Festival in July and three sell-out performances at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, don't let anyone say there isn't an appetite for challenging contemporary opera and thankfully the INO seasons are always tremendously rich and varied, including contemporary Irish works, baroque opera, popular favourites and the odd rarity.
I'll be honest and say that despite the considerable efforts that have gone into the composition and marrying it to an inventive integrated production design, MARS is very entertaining and very much of the moment, but it doesn't feel like a substantial piece. Personally, I would have preferred if Walshe had just fully indulged the scenes in her random episodic fashion and left any conclusions to be drawn without the need (by writer Mark O'Connell?) to provide a conventional plot resolution, but maybe that's just me. MARS unquestionably has many other angles that are wholly Jennifer Walshe and couldn't be anyone else, and we can't ask for more than that. And perhaps there is more to the work than I'm giving her credit for; the world is indeed becoming increasingly absurd, heading into an unknown that is genuinely frightening, and MARS offers some hope that we can navigate our way through it.
External links: Irish National Opera, Jennifer Walshe on MARS in the Guardian
