Page 443 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

Eventually, time disappears entirely and we enter the opera’s much shorter

and unexpected second and final phase – visualised in Adam Sinclair’s

animation: a TV game show is in progress with the audience laughing at the
most extreme and horrifying answers to appalling questions ("What, Judy,

are the effects of the nerve gas sarin?"), while in the background, war

footage from different periods is screened.

It’s a curious close, but then, how do you finish an opera that deals with the

end of time? Ultimately, it’s as good a conclusion as any to this highly
accomplished and fascinating new work.

The four singers are all remarkable: Anna Dennis’ white-toned Violet –

whom Richard Burkhard’s more prosaic Felix initially thinks is crazy –
Frances Gregory’s flummoxed Laura and Andrew Mackenzie-Wicks as the

manic Clock-keeper.

Jude Christian’s production is spare but potent – location and period are

deliberately vague, if not actually self-contradictory in the mixed-period

costumes.

While it’s hard to see what exactly – if anything – the creatives are getting

at in the weird scenario, this strikingly brilliant work certainly represents

the finest joint UK operatic debut since Martin Crimp and George Benjamin
collaborated on Into the Little Hill in 2006.