United Kingdom Garsington Opera 2024 [5] – Andrew Norman, A Journey to the Moon: Soloists, Garsington Opera Grownup and Youth Firms, Main and Toddler College Firms, and Philharmonia Orchestra / Douglas Boyd (conductor). Garsington Opera at Wormsley, 30.7.2024. (CR)
Forged:
Eoa – Jennifer France
Georges Méliès – Robert Murray
Queen of the Moon Folks – Sarah-Jane Lewis
Oeo – Patrick Dow
Alcofrisbas – Merryn Campbell Chandra
Micromegas – Beau Dunsford
Omega – Harry Gupta
Barbenfouilis – Kelis Markwell
Parafaragaramus – Maisie Marshall
Nostradamus – Tavia Ndudzo
Manufacturing:
Director – Karen Gillingham
Designer – Rhiannon Newman Brown
Lighting designer – Ben Pickersgill
Video designer – Claudia Lee
Choreographer – Natasha Khamjani
Andrew Norman’s one act melodrama A Journey to the Moon was commissioned by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, and premiered in 2017. It additionally acquired a staged efficiency on the Barbican by the London Symphony Orchestra with the identical conductor. Hamburg State Opera commissioned a revised chamber model in 2023, and it’s that model (albeit retaining Norman’s unique English textual content, fairly than the brand new German translation) which presumably was given right here by Garsington Opera. With pairs of first and second violins, violas, cellos, and trumpets, one double bass, trombone, bass trombone, two percussionists, and one performer on the piano and celeste, and the truth that it’s primarily (however not solely) meant for kids, it’s fairly akin to a contemporary model of a Britten chamber opera, all of the extra applicable at Garsington’s competition this yr which featured a kind of, A Midsummer Night time’s Dream (evaluation right here).
Billed right here as ‘an opera for folks of all ages’, which aptly described the supportive viewers of the performers’ household and pals, this manufacturing additionally enlisted the efforts of individuals of nearly all ages – from infants of about three or 4 as much as younger youngsters, and adults from their 20s to seniors – permitting the competition’s grownup and youth firms to play a component within the 180-strong refrain, in addition to native colleges. They’re additionally among the many first beneficiaries of Garsington’s new studios within the grounds of their residence on the Wormsley Property for practising and social programmes.
A Journey to the Moon is impressed by Georges Méliès’s celebrated movement image of 1902 however isn’t merely an operatic adaptation of it. Méliès, carrying his video digital camera all through, turns into one of many central characters, gazing on the Moon by way of his telescope at the start, and is assisted by six younger enthused however callow astronomers who construct a rocket to move them to the earth’s satellite tv for pc. There they encounter the Moon Folks, who communicate a language composed solely of vowels, and all sides has to study to beat limitations in communication and social protocol. Just like the tantalising data of excellent and evil within the Backyard of Eden, the potential for hassle emerges when Georges confirms to Eoa that there’s additionally such a factor as ‘Uai’ on Earth, which appears to equate with one thing like warfare or strife. When a Moon youngster goes lacking, the Moon Folks flip upon the seven guests from Earth in confrontational suspicion. However the youngster is discovered (an indirect reference to the Previous Testomony story of Athalia and the restoration of Israel upon the invention of the rightful Israelite king Joas within the Temple?) and relations are restored earlier than Georges and his assistants return to Earth. The drama comes full orbit, as Eoa is seen wanting again to Earth by way of her telescope, simply as Georges contemplated the Moon at the start.
On this musical drama about reaching out and overcoming distinction and strangeness, it’s clearly a deliberate and efficient technique that Georges and his astronomers communicate their components (though the frequent assonance of Norman’s textual content offers their traces some rhythmic impetus) and the primary sung vocal traces we hear are Jennifer France’s liquid vowel ululations when Eoa meets Georges. Robert Murray imitates these in a transparent excessive tenor voice, lean and with out vibrato, and musical and social concord begins to be established (Georges is the one one of many named Earthlings within the forged who sings in any respect in the course of the efficiency). Patrick Dow – as Oeo, Eoa’s male Moon counterpart – enunciates his half in additional indifferent, syllabic vocalisations, extra assertive than France’s melismas, and pre-empting the extra menacing staccato grunts he makes to whip up the Moon dwellers once they collect angrily to confront the Earth guests. Because the Queen of the Moon Folks, Sarah-Jane Lewis tends to incant over the extra dynamic dialogues between Eoa, Oeo, and Georges with a much less unworldly, ripe-toned coloratura floating over them. Extremely engaged, resounding contributions from the assorted teams constituting the choir right here add to the joyously clamorous concord, although they first collect with one thing just like the buzzing of bees, together with the percussive sequences articulated by the Moon Folks with the tubes they wield, tapped out or sometimes whirled round at totally different pitches.
Norman’s rating is basically minimalist in character, tending to offer a thrusting atmospheric backdrop to the drama fairly than direct remark or engagement with the motion, and due to this fact not differentiating a lot between any music that is perhaps related to the Earth folks on the one hand, and people of the Moon on the opposite. The choral episodes for the latter typically oscillate round chords of the main seventh, brilliant and diatonically grounded, however by simply falling wanting a totally consonant triad, there’s a tone of uncertainty and open-endedness, even a tinge of melancholy. Douglas Boyd and the performers from the Philharmonic Orchestra astutely hold the entire thing on monitor, offering rhythmic focus for the sprawling choral sequences, and clear factors of timbral curiosity elsewhere, particularly within the lengthy prelude: to return to the Britten, simply as he takes us sonically from the on a regular basis world into the woods for the fantasy of A Midsummer Night time’s Dream, so Norman conjures a sequence of sounds which helps transports us into the cosmic realm, even when the remainder of the rating stays considerably cheerfully sublunary. Nonetheless, Garsington’s presentation of the spectacle, with the drama’s intriguing idea, may have kids and adults delight within the magic of dwell theatrical efficiency.
Curtis Rogers
