Play all audios:
Harrison Birtwistle’s score for the _ Mask of Orpheus _ is a serious intellectual achievement, but unlike his opera _ The Minotaur _ there is no thread to follow. Time is folded back on
itself as we see incidents such as the relapse of Eurydice into Hades repeated in different forms. As Birtwistle himself writes, “I’m concerned with repetition, with going over the same
event from different angles” — events that “move in concentric circles”, like planets in the solar system, each on its own orbit, taking different times to repeat their cycle. With three
versions of Orpheus himself, the Man, the Myth, the Hero, and likewise for Eurydice, this is a multi-dimensional score. There are also three versions of Aristaeus, the mythical creator of
wine and honey cultivation, who desired to be Eurydice’s lover. At the end of Act 1 we even see projections of bees working in a hive, but as Birtwistle well knows, myths are multi-layered,
divorced from historical fact, and should not be taken literally. Honey, for example was not a Greek invention, but came from their Indo-European forebears. For the Greeks, the Orpheus myth
was a powerful one, and Orpheus himself and the founders of Orphic sects in the fifth century, such as the Pythagoreans, achieved mythical status, credited with seminal achievements.
Birtwistle’s composition alludes to other myths such that of Dionysus and Pentheus, and Act 2 of three Acts includes a symbolic journey over seventeen arches, at the end of which the three
versions of Orpheus (Man, Hero and Myth) emerge and the Myth hangs himself. This is a highly sophisticated musical creation, but more in the nature of symphony than opera. A staging should
allow the music to speak for itself, with some subtle reminders of what is going on in this multi-layered story, but that was not the case here. When the English National Opera dispensed
with Daniel Kramer’s services as artistic director, he decided to take up the staging of this opera, seeing an opportunity for elaborate spectacle with aerial gymnasts and bright costumes
that sometimes look as if they were designed for a children’s science fiction spectacular. But high camp is not right for Birtwistle’s music, whose emotional and intellectual depths cannot
appeal to an audience for musicals such as _ The Lion King _ . Costume designer Daniel Lismore must have had huge fun, and appeared himself in a costume based on one of the characters, but
it was all far and away over the top. Artistic direction of the ENO is now in other hands, and we can only hope that the company will concentrate on its musical and vocal strengths, among
which is Martyn Brabbins who, along with James Henshaw, conducted the music, and Peter Hoare whose remarkable performance of Orpheus the Man was the great achievement of the evening.
Continues until 13 November — details here .