Page 301 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

Vivaldi: Bajazet - Claire Booth, James Laing - Irish National Opera in 2022 (Photo Kip Carroll)

Claire has wanted to work with Helen Grime for some time, having been really
drawn to Grime's orchestration so that a singer feels that their line is over the
top of the orchestra, yet they are within it. Helen Grime's new work, Folk, is
based on Zoe Gilbert's book Folk, a set of short stories about people who live
in a magical, mysterious version of the Orkneys. Claire calls the book very
thrilling, and is delighted to be premiering Helen Grime's Folk with Ryan
Wigglesworth and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in September. Ryan
Wigglesworth is someone with whom Claire goes back a long way and she
premiered his Augenlieder in 2009 (released on NMC Recordings in 2015).

In July, she will also be taking part in the premiere of Joe Cutler and Max
Hoehn's Sonata for Broken Fingers - In the last days of Stalin’s reign, a
mysterious phone call from the Kremlin launches a desperate search for a
missing pianist. Inspired by the life of the pianist Maria Yudina (1899-1970),
this new chamber opera explores the role of music in people’s lives during one
of the darkest periods of Soviet history. Claire is playing Maria Yudina, though
whether the anecdote used in the opera actually happened is less than clear.
She is enjoying the sound world of Joe Cutler's opera and says that it reminds
her of the music of Jonathan Harvey. If (and when) the opera is staged, then
her character needs to play the piano. Claire does actually play, and she
comments that it would be a nice challenge to have to do this on stage in a
contemporary opera, but the performance on 14 July is a concert one (and it is
being recorded for Birmingham Record Company) so the fingers that you hear
playing will not be Claire's.