Review by Simon Jenner, February 18th 2025
How do you turn a chamber opera into something even more intimate? When it comes to full-scale operas it’s easy. OperaUpClose tackled Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman with aplomb and acclaim in 2023. Staying with the sea’s peril as theme, they segue into Vaughan Williams’ finest opera, setting the whole of a 1904 one-act J. M. Synge play, Riders to the Sea. Composed 1925-32 though first performed in 1937, its very brevity has worked against its recognition. But bleak in its tragedy and lyricism, it’s one of the very finest one-act operas written in Britain, at the least. Directed by Flora McIntosh on a tour (details below) for OperaUpClose it plays in smaller venues than the Wagner, running till March 3rd.
Arriving at the Arts Depot if you know the opera, you’ll be in for a surprise. Because the opera runs to just 35-42 minutes, and is often performed with another work. Here though, there’s a new prologue The Last Bit of the Moon, atmospherically composed by Canadian Michael Betteridge, with a hauntingly beautiful Synge-inspired text written by ArtfulScribe’s Community Sirens Collective led by Antosh Wojcik. It’s flecked with naming colours just like the Synge, with lines like “I am the stone spit into the blue!” and “I fly in the spit of a sea-sundered dream.”
Susie Buckle and Julia Mariko. Photo Credit: OperaUpClose
Betteridge’s newly-composed prologue and orchestration throughout (reduction to just bass clarinet, oboe and accordion) is recognisably contemporary and accessible, allowing the opening monologue sung by Bartley (Neil Balfour) in a low-key tenor range, emphasising clarity of storytelling. Bartley’s a haunted man here; it’s an intriguing take on brotherly guilt as a mainspring of action.
Virginie Taylor’s mostly excellent caption design (the font alters, some more readable than others) allows everyone to read both new and more familiar text stage-left. Cheng Keng’s set is a curious initial attempt to shroud off the main opera with the prologue (understandably). Keng’s white sheet allows Aaron John West’s sea-images to roll like a home movie.
It then opens up to a bare modern kitchen, though sparse, edged with a set of curtains with black designs that look like flattened-out seaweed, or bats. A modern BX bike and little else places the production outside its original period though not time: loss is palpable. But a world of horses and lack of long-distance communication – save through priests – makes this more an attempt to make a production look accessible than make sense. Keng’s lighting works strongly, allowing gulphs and shadows as well as transcendent moments. Robin Simon’s quietly modern costumes work the same vein – though elder daughter Cathleen sports a large-pattern sweater. Wearing crucifixes semaphores traditional Ireland.
Photo Credit: OperaUpClose
Cathleen (Julia Mariko) and younger sister Nora (Susie Buckle) have just received the clothes of Michael, fifth of six brothers to die at sea. The now offstage Young Priest declares he’s had a “clean burial” but they wish to shield this for now from their mother. Mariko’s ardent soprano counterpoints the more youthful Buckle, whose clarity and deftness contrast with Mariko’s powerful forebodings. Bartley wises to go to a horse fair riding the red mare and grey pony. Maura tries stopping him. He goes, outcomes drift in. A couple of minor roles not needed are cut and integrated.
Maurya (Lauren Young) is though the heart of the work. In an arc of apprehension and grief rising to transcendence Young carries a tidal wave that crashes and shivers to nothing. Young’s performance above all raises the work to the tragedy it is, stricken with a merciless beauty that can be, has to be, overwhelming.
There’s fine recording of voices, and offstage singing Moon (Tom Lilburn ). The three instrumentalists are outstanding. In particular accordion-player Ilona Suomalainen, where Betteridge has stranded together much of the harmony, also adding a rustic burr
Bass clarinetist Emily Wilson too adds wonderful bass-notes and some heavy harmonic lifting. Bryony Middleton’s oboe keens and wails above the surf’s roar.
Photo Credit: OperaUpClose
Photo Credit: OperaUpClose
The script later alerted me to Bartley’s returning presence as marking someone who having accepted himself, “can now live”. In the opera’s brief span, the trio of female singers cleave to Maura’s: “There is nothing more the sea can do to me now.” And the ending “We must be satisfied” shows where music and words take any dumb-show of redemption and smash it like sea-wrack. Luckily no-one noticed and the opera scaled its devastation without re-pointing.
Forget OperaUpClose’s scenario: Betteridge’s prologue is certainly worth seeing even if you know the work, and won’t need persuading. And after the opera, the rest is surf, and silence.
Musical Supervisor Robin Wallington, Sound Matt Fairclough, Assistant Director Bobbie-Jean Henning, Filmmaker Aaron John West
Photo Credit: OperaUpClose
Photo Credit: OperaUpClose
21-22 Feb Godber Studio, Hull Truck Theatre
St. Stephen’s Shopping Centre, 50 Ferensway, Hull HU2 8LB
Fri 7pm, Sat 2.30pm | £13.50 – £11.50 concs for student, under 16, access, income related benefits
www.hulltruck.co.uk | 01482 323638
25-26 Feb The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford
S Parade, Summertown, Oxford OX2 7JN
Tues and Wed 7.30pm | £20-£12
www.thenorthwall.com | 01482 323638
3 March Blackpool Grand
33 Church St, Blackpool FY1 1HT
TBC
https://www.blackpoolgrand.co.uk | 01482 323638
Photo Credit: OperaUpClose