Page 212 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

Weir in 1988, when she was working on a TV version of A Night at the Chinese Opera
DON SMITH/RADIO TIMES/GETTY IMAGES
However, her supernatural thriller Blond Eckbert is being newly staged to open the Aldeburgh

Festival, then taken on the road by English Touring Opera. It has always struck me as a very

enigmatic piece. Is that how she intended it? “Yes, I think enigma is what opera can do really

well,” she says. “It’s why I don’t like productions of my operas where the director has imposed
a really strong view of what he or she thinks it means.”

Has she ever winced when sitting through a production of one of her operas? “Well, it’s like

giving away your own child,” she says. “I don’t think people realise how little control the

composer has once the production team get their hands on it. Seeing a new staging for the first

time, you can easily have an ‘oh my God’ moment. My hope is only that the narrative gets