Page 563 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

10 June 2022

OPERA & CLASSICAL
REVIEW VIOLET, MUSIC THEATRE

WALES, SHERMAN THEATRE BY PETER

GASKELL

(3 / 5)

Contemporary opera may be an unfamiliar genre to many, even fans of musical theatre,
and this was not in the background of Tom Coult or Alice Birch before they collaborated
to compose and write ‘Violet’. Opera traditionally is not sung in English and is set in
specific times and places as the protagonists, often lovers, work out their fate, usually
tragic, as they struggle against the prevailing social and political conventions. ‘Violet’ is
not a story of love seeking to prevail in spite of contrary circumstances, like Tristan and
Isolde, La Boheme, Tosca or Madame Butterfly but more Nabucco, of emancipation from
constraints to freedom, and lovelessness.

Co-Produced by Music Theatre Wales and Britten Pears, the premise of ‘Violet’ is bold