Mitchell - Riot Symphony (Belfast, 2024)

Conor Mitchell - Riot Symphony

Ulster Orchestra, 2004

Andrew Gourlay, Gavin Peden, Rebecca Murphy, Michael Bell

Ulster Hall - 10 May 2024

With his latest work Riot Symphony again blurring the lines between symphony, opera and punk rock, Conor Mitchell continues to prove to be one of the most vital and uncategorisable of contemporary composers in Northern Ireland. With his Belfast Ensemble he has produced works that incorporate a range of disciplines, from theatre, video multimedia pieces, musicals, operas and, previously with the Ulster Orchestra, even a mass. Although very much a contemporary classical composer with an orchestra his main instrument, there is anti-establishment attitude to his work, primarily because he finds inspiration in current political events, in societal issues and in current affairs. He can be at his most 'punk' in an opera like Abomination and the same attitude can be found in his most recent collaboration with dramatist and librettist, Mark Ravenhill, the opera triptych The Headless Soldier.

You might think that Mitchell would ease up on that outspoken spirit of confronting controversial and sometimes even taboo subjects when composing a new symphony for the current Ulster Orchestra season, but no, on the contrary, the 50 minute work may even be his most expansive and accomplished work to date. Fearlessly (and somewhat suitably) squeezing in between a John Williams Star Wars concert and Mahler's 2nd Symphony 'Resurrection' in the season programme, Mitchell produces a work that is as much popular spectacle as heartfelt exploration of personal concerns, incorporating video projection, operatic singing, a libretto based on the writings of Sophie Scholl and a punk anthem by Pussy Riot, with echoes of the Ukrainian national anthem and condemnation of Vladimir Putin. Throw in the Mulholland Grand Organ, installed in the Ulster Hall in 1861, and this is going to be a riot; a Riot Symphony.

In a pre-performance discussion with Ulster Orchestra artistic director Patrick McCarthy, the music writer Stuart Bailie and Alanah Smyth from the Belfast punk band Problem Patterns, there was an interesting discussion on the history of politically leaning folk and punk music and its importance for the province, but little recognition of classical music playing any significant role. Mitchell however made a good case for the fact that classical music continued to be performed at the Ulster Hall during the Troubles as a courageous act of defiance in itself. Music can also be a necessary haven from the world outside, and the Ulster Orchestra kept the flame of art and culture alive through social and political unrest, bombings, shooting and riots on the nearby streets.

He made an even more compelling case for it in his Riot Symphony. It may have referenced Russia, Putin, Ukraine and the protests against totalitarian rule by Pussy Riot in the video montage and in the music itself, but this was a universal hymn to the right to protest at a time when the UK Conservative government, with the approval and complicity of the Labour Party, are enacting laws to restrict the right to peaceful protest. Mitchell is lucky he wasn't arrested after the show at the Ulster Hall, as it could be seen as incitement to riot, or at the very least in some of those louder dissonant passages of the symphony, as a disturbance of the peace.

In truth, the Riot Symphony is a dynamic and highly moving experience. The composer admittedly relies on a simple rhythmic pattern as the basis of the piece, but he makes every possible use of the orchestral resources of the Ulster Orchestra and the occasion to present this work to the regular Friday evening Ulster Hall audience, to extend those musical and thematic ideas as widely as possible. As the opening musical salvo started to settle after assaulting the eyes with demonic images of Putin, the anticipation generated of the soprano rising to challenge him using the words of Sophie Scholl's White Rose Movement pamphlets was tangible. It didn't disappoint or fail to do musical justice and bring deep emotional and humanistic force to the words, stunningly delivered by Rebecca Murphy. The manifesto is taken up by her "brother", also executed by the Nazis, tenor Michael Bell urging people not to accept corrupt governance, but that a better world was possible. The way the singing performances opened up the work is impressive and incredibly moving.

The bravery of voicing such sentiments is borne out in the following movement or section that feels like a lament for Sophie Scholl, but also for other inspirational voices of protest, the video sequence showing Sinéad O’Connor's famous rejection of the oppression of the Catholic church in her ripping up of a picture of the Pope on a television performance, the astonishing image of the protester standing in front of the tanks rolling into Tiananmen Square, in the protests of the Civil Rights movement. It's deeply moving, not just for the familiar images, but for what the music expresses in that moment and in what has led up to it. The final movement set against video footage of Pussy Riot being arrested in Moscow for "hooliganism" performing a protest song against Putin in a cathedral, uses musical references to their song 'Putin Lights Up The Fires', closing the work with imagery and a musical salvo that can't but leave a deep impression.

More than just seek to be controversial and provocative, Conor Mitchell has demonstrably been a progressive force in the local music scene in the classical world, keen to reach out and engage with all kinds of audiences, encouraging reflection on the state of the world today and the forces that try to restrict or repress freedom of expression, whether that's political leaders, religious leaders or even the restraints of family. He has also used video projection to enhance the musical expression on a similar theme in a shorter piece Lunaria, but this is a triumph on another scale. The Riot Symphony may be his most important work yet, because it's more than a protest, it's about the right to protest and even the necessity to protest. It's almost a credo for the whole body of Mitchell's work as an artist.

It's all the more remarkable then that one of the most outspoken, challenging and provocative voices in the world of the Northern Ireland music scene comes from the world of contemporary classical music, but Conor Mitchell clearly sees no distinction and will use whatever means necessary - opera, theatre, musical theatre, mass, symphony - without prejudice or distinction, using whatever musical language and in a blending of art forms that will permit the work and its message to reach the widest possible audience. Mitchell has extended his personal reach with Riot Symphony, a work that will undoubtedly be considered a major work that occupies a significant place in the musical history of Northern Ireland, but it has an important message that will hopefully see it performed more widely and have greater meaning for audiences worldwide.

External links: Ulster Orchestra

Coult - Violet (Buxton, 2022)

Tom Coult - Violet

Buxton International Festival, 2022

Andrew Gourlay, Jude Christian, Anna Dennis, Richard Burkhard, Frances Gregory, Andrew Mackenzie

Buxton Opera House - 18th July 2022

The idea of the world coming to an end in Tom Coult's new and first opera Violet may have had a little extra edge due to the fact that it took place in Buxton on the hottest day of the year in a summer that was hitting the highest temperatures the UK has ever seen. It was 33°C at 7:15 pm when the opera started (and it reached 37°C the following day), so you felt like you had indeed been out through the wringer by the time you got out. As far as Violet is concerned, I'm undecided whether that's a good thing or not.

Time and awareness of the passing of time is significant as far as Violet goes and playwright Alice Birch has built a relatively simple idea around this for her libretto. A woman in a village, Violet, notices that an hour has disappeared from the day, a swift adjustment from midnight to 1:00am in the blink of an eye that even affects the clocks. Her husband Felix doesn't believe it, but as subsequent days each lose another hour every day, the evidence is clear and the implications worrying as we come to day 23, a day lasts only one hour.

I had been looking forward to hearing this since 2020 when it was originally scheduled and then cancelled because of the Covid pandemic, so I based my annual visit to the Buxton International Festival around its single performance here. The critical acclaim from its likewise readjusted world premiere performance at Aldeburgh to June this year was also promising, but despite its acclaim Violet didn't live up to the billing for me. It may be a simple idea that invites profound thoughts, but you're going to have to bring those yourself, because Violet and the production don't provide them.

What the opera seeks to explore is evidently how people react to what looks like impending doom, and the responses from the characters here varies. Violet, who has been suffering from depression and is the first person to understand what is happening, finds it easiest to embrace the idea, having presumably been expecting or longing for her own personal world to shut down for years. The other people and the inhabitants of the village used to a sense of order in their lives, are less sanguine about the turn of events and unexpectedly this turns to fear, anger and violence.

Not that we really see any of this in the Music Theatre Wales production (or hear it in the music really) other than through reports in the exchanges between the four characters who remain confined to a room around a table, curiously preoccupied with meals. The room is more of an abstraction, with ominous computer visuals projected behind of skies and perhaps time itself being consumed by strange singularities. The table is eventually overturned and Violet for some reason builds a boat, but under the direction of Jude Christian there is very little meaningful activity on the stage. The intent however is to present Violet as an idea or something to provoke ideas, but there is very little in the mundane exchanges of growing concern that really invite any deeper consideration.

As I suggested at the start, you could take what happens as a metaphor for global warming, with its small incremental and irreversible changes that creep up with the potential to have serious consequences down the line. You can also take it on an individual level of someone feeling their world closing in on them and accepting that there is no way out. The breakdown of the old social order presents Violet with a freedom, an inner freeing that she was unable to attain under the established patriarchal system. There are lots of other ways you can read this, even the idea of accepting the inevitably of time and change, but there is nothing too deep provided here.

Musically with its metronomes and bells, the score is quite effective at sustaining the mood of impending doom. Coult cites Ravel as a model (and evidently L'Heure espagnole with its clockmaker comes to mind), as well as several movie influences, mainly Lars Von Trier and there is certainly an element of Melancholia here (but nothing Wagnerian in Coult's score as with that film's apocalyptic use of Tristan und Isolde). Musically I can think of several antecedents that have worked to abstract ideas of time more successfully. I was reminded of Georg Friedrich Haas's microtonal shifts in Morgen und Abend and evidently of the musical techniques employed by Britten for The Turn of the Screw. I expected at least that each scene or segment of Violet would shorten in length as the opera progressed, but they all seemed more or less equal.

Nevertheless, conducted by Andrew Gourlay the chamber orchestration and the fascinating use of instruments managed to keep the opera engaging on a musical level, becoming sparser and more abstract as time progressed and disappeared. The countdown of hours left each day also provided structure and inevitably apprehension and Anna Dennis gave a terrific performance as Violet. The closing section of the final moments of existence using computer graphics of family in a room with a macabre game show in the background was perhaps intended to be satirical, but felt misjudged and really failed to make the impact. Not with a bang but a whimper indeed. Sadly, I felt much the same about Violet.

Links: Buxton International Festival