Benjamin - Picture A Day Like This (Aix-en-Provence, 2023)

George Benjamin - Picture A Day Like This

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, 2023

George Benjamin, Daniel Jeanneteau, Marie-Christine Soma, Marianne Crebassa, Anna Prohaska, Beate Mordal, Cameron Shahbazi, John Brancy, Lisa Grandmottet, Eulalie Rambaud, Matthieu Baquey

ARTE Concert - 14 July 2023

I have to say that my first impression of the new opera from George Benjamin and Martin Crimp premiered at the 2023 Aix-en-Provence Festival was that it appeared to be a slight work; a simple story, a fable, a fairy tale with a fairly obvious moral and meaning. Such thoughts were also there to an extent while viewing the previous two operas, Written on Skin and Lessons in Love and Violence, at least in as far as they seemed overly studied and mannered, removed from the everyday. Both those operas however nonetheless left a great impression and have rewarded further listening for detail and substance, and I have little doubt that Picture A Day Like This will be the same.

Running to around 65 minutes Picture A Day Like This is certainly shorter and perhaps even slighter than the previous two operas by Benjamin and Crimp, but it is by no means a lesser work, since it deals with deep emotional reaction to difficult human experiences and situations. It doesn't employ a full orchestra, nor does it appear to take in the wide range of emotions and dramatic action as the previous two works. Rather it's a chamber opera with a smaller cast and orchestra, although it does have at least as few principal roles as Written on Skin. Like that work, it's equally as intense and bristling with underlying menace and unease, only here it does so in an appropriately more concentrated form. Such is the impact that it's only when you come out of it that you realise how successfully the composer and librettist have gripped you in their world.

The plot is related in the simplistic manner of a fairy-tale, but also similarly touching on deep human emotions and universal experiences the way a fairy-tale can do. And, in the opera form, that means that it has the benefit of music to delve even further, and we know that Benjamin's music is highly capable of doing that. The story relates the loss of a child by the Woman (the creators like to operate on the idea of general human rather than specific), who is so distraught she searches for a means to bring him back to life. She is told that if by the end of the day she can find a single person who is happy with their life and cut a button from their sleeve, her child will be returned to her, and she is given a list of a number of people who all seem to be living a life of perfect bliss. Evidently, their lives are not as filled with contentment as they appear to be.

The implication or moral is clearly evident. Everyone carries their own burdens, and if they appear to be happy, it's only because they have had to learn live with their fears and trauma - some more successfully than others. Ultimately, many of those strategies have failed and there is no real pleasure to be found in material possessions, in fame or success, even love has its limitations. None of these situations is comparable to living with the death of your young child, nor is it that the intention when it comes to the Woman's final encounter with Zabelle and the beautiful garden she has created to suggest that it's in any way similar to a composer's struggle with their art, but the latter suggests that is important is finding a way of living with your unhappiness, making it a part of you, not denying it.

It's a simple moral or message then, one that shouldn't need dressed up in a fairy-tale situation with intense music, but here is no question that bereavement - particularly of a child - is a challenging and multi-faceted subject to explore. The coming to any realisation is a journey that the Woman has to make and be experienced, and - to a much lesser extent obviously - the listener has to make that same journey over the course of the opera. And to be honest, that would be hard to endure over anything longer than the running time of just over an hour. Nonetheless, George Benjamin uses every minute of that to find the right note, taking care not to overload it, using space and silence as important elements to give room for the music, the situation and the content to breathe and express itself to the fullest extent. There are few if any dramatic flourishes, and nothing seems superfluous. At times the score feels like 'mood music' or soundtrack backing in the way that it rarely draws attention to itself, but it nonetheless weaves a complex way through the emotional and dramatic content.

The impression that this is slight and lacking in dramatic action is probably also due to the mostly dark, minimalist stage direction, but this is also deceptive. Carefully directed by Daniel Jeanneteau and Marie-Christine Soma, as well has handling the set design, dramaturgy and lighting design, it's actually appropriate and essential that the attention isn't drawn away from the emotional impact of the primary expression of the music and the singers. As such it's highly effective, using glass and mirrors so that figures seem to appear from nowhere and vanish like in a dream. When it comes then to stressing the vital importance of the impact of Zabelle's garden then, the effects are extraordinary and almost magical. All of it contributes to enveloping you in this otherworldly place, the otherworldly place where grief takes you.

Since all the singers were hand-picked by the composer, who worked with them to play to their strengths, it's no wonder that the singing is so effective in the part it plays in this. The performances are as carefully calibrated as the music, with Marianne Crebassa creating the vital central role of the Woman. Crebassa's ability is well known on these pages, but here in such a role where a huge journey has to be undertaken over the running time of little more than an hour, it goes beyond technical ability and into timing, delivery, expression, feeling and being. Similarly, you might regret that Anna Prohaska doesn't have a larger and more showy role, but again it's a case of providing only what is essential to the work. The other singing roles of the happy but not happy people the Woman encounters - Beate Mordal, Cameron Shahbazi and John Brancy - are likewise impressive in their ability to tap into the essence of the situation and what lies behind in the music.

Benjamin, as is customary for this composer, conducts the score himself, leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra through the dark intricacies of the score. It's a short work with few characters, few situations and minimal orchestration, but when Marianne Crebassa gazes out as the dying notes remain suspended in the air and the listener emerges out of this dream-like state, any suggestion or impression that this is a minor work is immediately erased. I've no doubt that not only does it reach as deep as Benjamin and Crimp's previous collaborations. but as well as standing on its own terms, Picture A Day Like This actually contributes another level to their body of work as a whole.

External links: Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, ARTE Concert

Benjamin - Lessons in Love and Violence (London, 2018)

George Benjamin - Lessons in Love and Violence

Royal Opera House, 2018

George Benjamin, Katie Mitchell, Stéphane Degout, Barbara Hannigan, Gyula Orendt, Peter Hoare, Samuel Boden, Jennifer France, Krisztina Szabó, Andri Björn Róbertsson

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

It's rare for a contemporary opera to quickly become a critical and popular success, although undoubtedly the legacy of Written on Skin will be determined over a longer period, but even as the earlier opera still runs and is given new productions worldwide, the pressure on George Benjamin and Martin Crimp to follow it up must have been considerable. I think it's fair to say that the response towards Lessons in Love and Violence has been cautiously positive, but I suspect its qualities will be more fully recognised in the longer term and it may even stand the test of time as another deeply thoughtful work from what is looking to be a formidable creative team.

Deeply thoughtful and considered however can work both ways, and there remains a slight coldness and calculation about the work in its Royal Opera House world premiere. Whether that's down to overworking the finer details of the structure and composition of the work on the part of Benjamin and Crimp, or whether Katie Mitchell's production doesn't do enough to breathe life into the work is a matter of interpretation, but what comes across with repeated viewing (as it did with Written on Skin) is that what initially might have felt like clinical academic coldness is actually a careful refinement of all the elements that are necessary to strip the work down to its bare essentials.

There's life to be put on old bones (which was also essentially the underlying theme of Written on Skin, opera capable of breathing life into an old historical tale like an illuminated manuscript), and in the case of Lessons in Love and Violence, it's Marlowe's Edward II that serves as the source for Martin Crimp. Lessons in Love and Violence is based on the situation (and violence) that ensues when the king's military advisor Mortimer takes offense at the favour and influence that Edward II's lover Gaveston has over the king, causing a scandal that leaves the queen Isabel in an awkward position and the nation's affairs being neglected as it slips into instability and war.

With numerous interviews in the official programme (reproduced in the DVD booklet) and YouTube videos explaining and detailing the process, there may have been too much talk done around the work, too much attention given to the back and forth labouring over structure and presentation and not enough opportunity to let the work itself breathe. Ultimately however, it's in performance that the quality of the work comes alive, although even there the intense 80 minutes without an interval really didn't give you time to breathe or take in much beyond the opera's considerable impact. The opportunity to view Lessons in Love and Violence again on its Blu-ray and DVD release shows however that its qualities are still very much in evidence and the work can certainly speak for itself on its own musical and dramatic terms.

Whether you are aware of the working methods behind the scenes or not, the resultant compactness and concision of Marlowe's drama (even though the opera uses almost nothing of the actual text of Edward II) is plainly evident in the fact that it demands the utmost attention from beginning to end for how the music and the drama operate, intersect and interact. If it reminds you at times of Pelléas et Mélisande, Wozzeck or The Turn of the Screw, it's because Lessons in Love and Violence has the same close connection between its charged drama and the psychological complexity underpinning it that is heightened by the musical and dramatic presentation.

George Benjamin's musical language might be initially difficult - there's no easy melodic line to follow, but rather fragmentary jabs, feints and punches - but the undeniable power and dramatic rightness of the music should be plainly evident. It's not just descriptive underscoring, but music that seeks to get inside the characters and the drama, filling it out, going beyond mere representation to a fuller expression of all the sentiments of love, conflict and violence on display. Whether you are able to keep up with it or not, by the time you arrive at the final sudden fall of the curtain, you will certainly feel emotionally drained from the charged and exhilarating situations that have just taken place. It needs to be followed through in that way, an intense run through of emotions in juxtaposition with one another, without an interval or pause for breath.

Lessons in Love and Violence is cinematic in that respect, achieving its impact more through the language of montage and editing than the typical stop-start operatic structures of arias, duets and choral arrangements (and accordingly, it's given a cinematic widescreen presentation here on its video recording). The work follows its own narrative drive and Katie Mitchell's production reflects that, ensuring that every single scene is pushed to its limits of expression, but even employing slow-motion effects (as with Written on Skin) when deemed necessary. Everything takes place in a single bedroom - modern opulence rather than medieval royal - that is presented from various angles, as is the drama in its reflection of perspective from each of its characters.

The performances of the cast are exceptional. French baritone Stéphane Degout sounds better than ever as the King (he's never mentioned by title as Edward II), bringing a wonderful soaring lyricism to the complexity of his relationships with Queen, lover, court and country. Barbara Hannigan brings a steely edge to Isabel, delivering barbed inflections to the text that rise to shrill heights of imperiousness and ruthlessness. Peter Hoare is terrific as Mortimer and Samuel Boden impressively assertive as he takes command later in the opera. Mitchell's production also takes account of the fact that there are other undercurrents implied and perpetuated by the 'Lessons' in the title with the presence of the king's young son and daughter visible throughout, even in the short filmed instrumental interludes between scenes.

All of this comes together in a way that is rare in opera outside of Pelléas et Mélisande, Wozzeck and The Turn of the Screw, and Lessons in Love and Violence stands up to being measured alongside those masterpieces. It's impossible not to feel the emotional depth and intensity of the work, how it deals with those traditionally operatic big themes, but in a new and vital way. While the sheer impact is undeniable, the richness of the work's construction and musical features are also likely to become more evident with repeated views and listening. As an extension and development upon their collaboration on Written on Skin, Lessons in Love and Violence will surely endure as another important work of modern opera from this creative team.

Released on Blu-ray, Lessons in Love and Violence comes across just as powerfully on screen as it did in live performance. The High Resolution LPCM and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 tracks permit the detail and rich textures of the music, conducted by George Benjamin himself, to be fully experienced. The video transfer and editing is superb, presenting the 'film' in 'Cinemascope' widescreen, harnessing all the power of the direction and the effectiveness of Vicki Mortimer's production design, the camerawork also revealing the quality of the dramatic performances of the impressive exceptional cast. There's a short 5-minute 'Introduction' to the opera and a Cast Gallery in the extras, and Oliver Mears interviews Benjamin and Crimp in the enclosed booklet.

Links: Royal Opera House

Benjamin - Lessons in Love and Violence (London, 2018)

George Benjamin - Lessons in Love and Violence 

Royal Opera House - London, 2018

George Benjamin, Katie Mitchell, Stéphane Degout, Barbara Hannigan, Gyula Orendt, Peter Hoare, Samuel Boden, Jennifer France, Krisztina Szabó, Andri Björn Róbertsson

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden - 26 May 2018 

I think it's fair to say that George Benjamin and Martin Crimp have paid more attention to the structure than the plot of their latest opera, and judging by the interviews with both of them in the Royal Opera House programme for its world premiere they'd probably be the first to admit it. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with that in an opera where the abstraction of music and its construction have an important part to play in addition to the dramatic narrative. As it happens however, Lessons in Love and Violence is not only brilliantly structured, it also seem to achieve exactly what it sets out to achieve, and perhaps more than you might expect from the title.

Maybe that kind of tight focus without any unnecessary over-elaboration is all we need in a situation, and certainly Benjamin's previous collaboration with playwright Martin Crimp, Written on Skin, is just as tightly and effectively delineated. But there might also be something more that we can derive from the artistry of the composer's musical interpretation of the text, from Katie Mitchell's direction and from the singing performances themselves. Certainly every element of the work has had the utmost attention, thought, precision and talent applied to its component parts, and in the combination of them raise the work to much more than the sum of them.

The lesson in love and violence that Benjamin and Crimp (and Mitchell and Degout and Hannigan et al) give us - or rather the lesson that they show us being passed on from one generation to the next - is thematically similar to Written on Skin and likewise based on a historical event and an old text, but reflected to some extent through a modern-day perspective. Drawn from, or perhaps more inspired by Marlowe's play 'Edward II', Lessons in Love and Violence is based on the situation (and violence) that ensues when the king's military advisor Mortimer takes offense at the favour and influence that Edward II's lover Gaveston has over the king, over the position it leaves the queen Isabel in, for the scandal it is causing and the harm that is doing to a nation slipping into instability and civil war.

Divided into seven scenes, running to only 90 minutes without an interval, the drama and phrasing of the dialogue is certainly mannered and not particularly naturalistic, but the focus is more on mood than exposition, on the accumulation of slights and conflicts, on personality and behaviour, all of it leading from love to acts of cruelty and barbarism. Watching its delivery and trajectory, it's easy to think that the work is rather laboured in terms of being meticulously thought out and almost, some might say, too academic an exercise in putting a situational drama to music. That might be the case but for the fact that in performance it really doesn't show.

All you see is a drama of remarkable concision in its concentration of musical and dramatic forces towards those essential themes, the work breathing sensual fire and menace. Crimp's phrasing is intense, direct and unadorned, repeating phrases, overlapping dialogues. Benjamin's score matches the fluctuations of mood and dynamic, dreamily sensual one moment, slow and sinister the next, harsh and dissonant the next. Combined they provide not so much a history lesson as a lesson in how love is viewed as weakness and how violence permits one to achieve personal and political ends. The lesson is well learned by the young king who observes the machinations of Mortimer and Isabel, and the result is that the violence is turned back on them. At the same time however, the underlying story, character and personalities revealed by the music, the direction and the singing ensure that this is never purely considered in an abstract or academic manner but closely related to human emotions and behaviours which can then be applied in a wider context.

Which is what Katie Mitchell's contribution brings to the work in collaboration with set and costume designer Vicki Mortimer, using some of their familiar traits. The setting is relatively modern-day, removing the subject from being tied to a historical period drama. The characters sometimes move in slow motion to enhance action or freeze the surrounding drama to bring focus to the singer, but the mood and rhythms are always fully attuned to the score and the text. There is also not unexpectedly a strong feminist vision the Mitchell brings to the work that is not necessarily explicit in the drama. Although it's the king's young son who brings to an end (or perpetuates) the cycle of violence at the conclusion of the opera with the execution of Mortimer, it's his young sister (a non-singing role) who wields the gun here - a turn of events that puts you in mind of Mitchell's work on the Purcell derived opera Miranda.

Hand-picked for the roles, the cast is simply superb and it's really hard to imagine any better singers fulfilling the roles, complementing each other and striking exciting contrasts. Singing impeccably in English, the French baritone Stéphane Degout sounds better than ever as the King (he's never mentioned by title as Edward II), striking out away from being the go-to Pelléas, but still bringing a wonderful soaring lyricism to another role that flirts with the danger in his relationship with Gyula Orendt's Gaveston. Barbara Hannigan has also recently sang in Pelléas et Mélisande, but there's a rather more steely edge to her character as the queen Isabel, delivering barbed inflections to the text that rise of course to shrill heights of imperiousness and ruthlessness. Peter Hoare is terrific as Mortimer, and Samuel Boden impressively assertive as he takes command later in the opera.

I mention Pelléas et Mélisande because it did come to mind now and again watching Lessons in Love and Violence. Not that it sounds at all like Debussy's masterpiece, but it is similarly structured into distinct intense dream-like scenes with quite beautiful instrumental passages between them. There's a darker outlook here however that is also reminiscent of Berg's Wozzeck, another precisely controlled and intense work. Benjamin however very much has his own voice, and it's one that clearly works tremendously well in collaboration with Martin Crimp. Their previous work Written in Skin was deservedly hailed as a modern masterpiece soon after its initial run and Lessons in Love and Violence is every bit its equal, on an initial viewing perhaps an even more brilliant a work in its concept and execution.

Links: Royal Opera House

Benjamin - Written on Skin

George Benjamin - Written on Skin

Royal Opera House, 2012

George Benjamin, Martin Crimp, Katie Mitchell, Christopher Purves, Barbara Hannigan, Bejun Mehta, Victoria Simmonds, Allan Clayton

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

It's hard to judge and define what makes a work of modern opera great when you don't have history and the legacy of the composer to look back on. One traditional indicator is whether the work continues to gain new productions and draw audiences over the next few years, but in the age of recordings and Blu-rays you can judge for yourself whether a work has merit by how much it draws you back to view it again. On that basis, George Benjamin's Written on Skin is undoubtedly one of the best new opera works of recent years, a work that creates a compelling musical and narrative language of its own that draws you into its world and resembles nothing else out there.

The question of events retaining or gaining significance with time is, not by chance, a large part of what Written on Skin is all about. Based on a 13th century work by the troubadour Guillem de Cabestaing ('Le Coeur mangé'), Written on Skin intentionally and very specifically filters a very old story through new eyes and with a modern sensibility. Can a story that is over 700 years old really have meaning to a modern audience? Can we wipe out the intervening years and understand how a medieval audience would have related to the story? Is there really any way of bringing the past back to life? The intention of playwright Martin Crimp and composer George Benjamin is clearly to show not only how storytelling can be made vital but how great art - and specifically opera - can also be transforming, violent and even dangerous.

To take us back however and indicate that we are exploring narrative, Martin Crimp creates a framework around the original medieval story. The opera opens with a team of 21st century angels erasing the time that has intervened between the period of story and the present day - "Fade out the living, snap back the dead to life" and "shatter the printing press" in order to "make each new book a precious object written on skin". The story they (and the composers) recreate is also a story about creation, going back to the very beginning where the old style of belief that has persisted is embodied in the Man. The Protector is a landowner who believes himself to be the centre of the universe, owner of everything he sees (including his wife's body), deserving of his position, one for which the sun has been designed for only one purpose and that is to shine on his land.

The man however wants his achievements to be immortalised and hires a Boy (a part taken by one of the angels) to create an Illuminated book that testifies to his greatness and the rightness of this order. This is a world where it was seen necessary to "Invent a woman... blame her for everything". His wife however doesn't recognise the Boy's depiction of woman and asks him "Can you invent another woman?  A woman who's real?" This new page in the book has unexpected consequences, the woman starting to think for herself, have desires of her own and act of her own accord. This disturbs her husband who, when he discovers (the vanity of the woman can't hide it) that she has been having a sexual liaison with the Boy, kills him and serves his heart up to her to eat.

Inevitably, the framing device of the angels is a very post-modern idea. Recognising that the drama is an artificial construct, the spoken dialogue is even related as if reading from a text, the characters referring to themselves in the third-person and ending sentences with, for example "...says the Boy". Even the fact that the main characters have generic names (Protector, Woman, Boy, Angel 1, Angel 2, Angel 3) is a recognition of this, but significantly, names do come into being with personality, the woman becoming "Agnès". This is particularly a commentary of the power of opera, since few art forms rely on such evident artifice as stage props, music and singing, yet few are as capable of reaching the heart of drama and emotions as this 400 year-old art-form.

The intention then is not to distance the viewer from the original story, but to actually show that despite the passing of time, despite the artifice of staged drama, that the story and the methods employed still have relevance and power. The opera itself is an Illuminated book that immortalises events and puts them into a format that can allow others to viscerally experience the past. That's actually quite an ambitious aim, since if it doesn't engage the viewer or is unable to make the characters come to life then the whole premise falls apart and the work fails. It's a testament then to the strength of the idea and the ability of the creators that the process of creation, the manipulation and playing-out of the story by the "angels", in no way detracts us from the "reality" of the drama recreated in front of your eyes. But then, that's the whole point of opera.

If at times Written on Skin does then feel like a calculated intellectual exercise, it's not a cold one, but one rather that is bursting with ideas, passions and meaning. Much of that is down to the concision of the dramatic setting and the precision of the words used in Martin Crimp's text, but it's brought to life by the equally precise and considered musical score by George Benjamin. It does exactly what the music ought to do flowing behind the words and "illuminating the page", accompanying the emotions, pushing them, but also filling in-between the layers, and in this particular work, short and succinct as it might be, there are many, many layers. Using a variety of ancient, modern and unconventional instruments including a bass viol and a glass harmonica, using discordant jarring modernist sounds and soft beguiling music, Benjamin's score also strives to bring it all together, taking the whole of now and looking back to then.

There's a similar level of concision, complexity and passion in the singing and Benjamin's musical writing allows room for the words to be heard and clarity to allow the voices to express them. It's not about singing beautiful phrases, but finding a voice that dramatically expresses the text and character. You can't ask for better singers in that regard or more fully committed or indeed technically accomplished performances than those given here at Covent Garden (as at the original world premiere in Aix-en-Provence), by Christopher Purves as the Protector, Barbara Hannigan as Agnès and countertenor Bejun Mehta as the Boy. Katie Mitchell's direction makes note of the artifice in Vicki Mortimer's boxed design with angel workshops surrounding the scenes where the drama is played out, but fully recognises the human passions that are played out within it. As with the world premiere in Aix, the composer George Benjamin conducts his own score.

That score is given a beautiful sound stage in the audio tracks on the Blu-ray release. It sounds great in LPCM Stereo, but has a greater depth and ambience in DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1. The image is clear and, with a wider than usual 2.35:1 image (with thin black bars at the top and bottom of the screen), it looks quite cinematic. Overhead cameras with wide angles are occasionally used to present a different perspective on the drama. The extra features on the BD are brief but informative, with a 5-minute Introduction to Written on Skin, a 2-minute interview with George Benjamin and a Cast Gallery. Subtitles are in English, French, German and Japanese only.

Benjamin - Written on Skin

George Benjamin - Written on Skin

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, 2012

George Benjamin, Katie Mitchell, Christopher Purves, Barbara Hannigan, Bejun Mehta, Rebecca Jo Loeb, Allan Clayton

ARTE Live Web, Internet streaming, Aix-en-Provence - 14 July 2012

Commissioned by the Aix-en Provence Festival to have a Provençal theme, George Benjamin’s Written on Skin takes an interesting approach to the task in his second opera. With a libretto written by Martin Crimp, Benjamin mixes classicism with the avant-garde to powerful effect in his 21st century perspective on a 12th century legend composed by the troubadour poet Guillaume de Cabestany. It’s not just in the unusual mix of musical instruments that have been used however - the orchestration coloured by as varied a range as a viola de gamba, mandolins and glass harmonica - or even the use of a countertenor in a modern opera, but it’s the necessity of viewing the past through the eye of the present, of breaking down myth into reality, that is evident throughout every element of the production. Viewed here via internet streaming during its world premiere run at Aix on 14th July 2012, Written on Skin is consequently an intense operatic experience.

The story itself seems to be a relatively minor one, but it does nonetheless make some interesting observations about the nature of self-deception, the exercise of power over others and the difficulty of coming to terms with an understanding of one’s true nature. The drama plays out principally between only three main characters - a man, a woman and a boy. The man, known as the Protector, is a landowner, a man “addicted to purity and violence”, proud of his achievements (”I own the fields, I own everyone in them”) who likewise regards his wife as part of his property. He engages the Boy, an artisan, to create an illuminated book for him to record his great achievements and to depict the glorious ascent to Paradise that awaits him. The woman, Agnès, however seeks something else in the Boy, is attracted to him and asks him to create “another woman” for her, one who can open the eyes of her husband to his failings. For the Protector, the book is to put a spin on his belief in himself as a great man, for Agnès, it’s an opportunity to reveal the real woman and her desires that are suppressed by the man. Vanitas vanitatem. The outcome is inevitably tragic.

What makes this simple story rather more interesting is in how it is viewed from a modern perspective. The story is narrated by three Angels - the Boy is also one of the Angels, the other two play the parts of Marie, the sister of Agnès and her husband - who seem to exist in a separate dimension, and along with other stagehands, they seem to be recreating the events, directing the actors into their places, viewing the sequence of events as they play out and commenting on them. All the characters recite their words as if reading them from a narrative text - Boy: ”What do you want, says the Boy”, Agnès: “To see, says the woman”. Vicki Mortimer’s stage designs, the stage divided into discreet locations seem to emphasis these separations between the reality and the meta-reality, between the story and its creation, between action and commentary on it. Most of the drama takes place in a thin lower strip of the stage, wooden, brown coloured that becomes a room and a bedroom leading to an exterior or a staircase, while the “angels” and their assistants look on form a modern blue-lit side-room and upper level “back office”.

While you are made aware of the characters relating their own words, playing a role, recreating events, it in no way however takes away from the intensity with which the story is depicted through the singing, the performances and in the brooding, probing, revealing musical score - the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted here by Benjamin himself - and through Katie Mitchell’s stage direction. The strength and power of the voices, as well as their combination of soprano, baritone and countertenor, are well arranged to achieve the necessary impact, but the actual casting of Barbara Hannigan, Christopher Purves and Bejun Mehta is critical in the ringing clarity of tones and in performances that push the violent passions to their limits. “Shatter the printing press. Make each new book a precious object written on skin“. Can you exhume and invoke the passions of the past and bring them to back to life in a manner that makes them meaningful and immediate to a modern audience? With opera - and the richness of musical and theatrical resources that it places at the disposal of a composer with the necessary ability - apparently you can.

Written on Skin is currently available to view via internet streaming on the ARTE Live Web and on the Medici website. Some region restrictions may apply. The new work will also be able to be seen at the De Nederlandse opera in Amsterdam and at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden later this year.