To its credit, Grimeborn has always emphasised environmental themes, whether in choice of repertoire or production style. With the impact of Canadian wildfires across North America very much in our minds, the opening double bill of one-act operas could not therefore be more apposite. The first is a loose meditation on the life and speeches of Greta Thunberg, while the second is a retelling of the biblical Creation story.
After my breath traces Thunberg’s growing awareness of envionmental degradation and her emerging determination to act. But it is as much about us as it about her – as the character sings at one point: ‘not who I am, but who you will be.’ The dramatic challenge, enhanced by sprightly, characterful writing for an intriguingly varied combination of instruments, is therefore, why are we not responding in a similarly radical way? At the heart of its impact is a very strong performance by Emily Thorner, the sole performer. This is highly demanding music which she negotiates with aplomb (stratospheric high notes on the words ‘Fires rise’ being a particularly notable moment); but it also requires a considerable flexible stage presence to present this thirty-minute work alone, with only a few props, lighting shifts and costume elements as assistance. Conductor Beth Fitzpatrick directs proceedings with clear leads and an immaculate stick technique, and the players listen carefully to one another to balance out the chamber textures of the piece where the voice is often in dialogue with only one or two instruments. I also liked the intertextual operatic references, riffing off the fact that Thunberg’s mother is an opera singer – it was good to be reminded that Mimi, Violetta and Tosca all endured struggles for breathable air, whether literally or figuratively.
Eden 2.0Â takes us into very different territory, through the vivid musical imagination of composer/conductor William Gardner. The opera opens with two white-robed disputatious gods attempting their latest rebooting of creation. Instead of denying the fruits of the tree of knowledge, they open them up to three carefully chosen individuals who between them might plausibly design a world that could survive different challenges. The first is a female philosopher from the pre-christian Mediterranean, the second an industrialist from Victorian England and the third a minister from a future time where climate change has made the world almost unrecognisable. They compare notes and experiences but eventually the gods conclude, perhaps a little too arbitrarily, that the experiment has not worked. However, they get to keep their memories and the industrialist returns to his own to time in the hope of applying some useful lessons, while the other two leave on a voyage of local exploration.
There is a lot of humour here, thanks to lively acting and fluent direction from Eleanor Burke, and the exposition of the problems is fascinating. If the opera has a weakness it is that the ending is really too compressed and deserves further expansion. We need to know more about the plan for world that the trio of experts devise, and why it is fatally flawed. Having set up such a fascinating scenario it is a shame that it is closed down so swiftly, with the gods literally packing up the props and set in front of us.
Musically, this is a fascinating and sophisticated piece of composition. The gods sing homophonically in the manner reminiscent of Britten’s Abraham and Isaac, and the instrumental textures are consistently inventive, with horn and theorbo, for instance, added to the mainly string and wind band. The purely orchestral episodes are memorable in their own right and Gardner allows himself some moments of excpetional lyricism too, as in the Minister’s romantic evocation of snow, a sequence that Samuel Barber could have written. All the singers turn in fine performances, wth Michael Temporal-Darell particularly resonant.
This work rightly received a rapturous reception from the audience, and hopefully there will be opportunities to hear it again before too long, and perhaps in an extended version.
This was the first time I had visited the Arcola for opera since the revamp of the seating arrangements, and for the greater part, the changes represent a significant improvement. Removing the audience balcony and flipping the stage-level bank of seats enables a much larger orchestra to be accommodated – eleven players in this case – while also creating a bigger console space for the stage manager and greater visibility of surtitles. The only potential drawback is that performers now need to ensure they move and play to all sides of the house equally while not always having direct sight of the conductor. But on the whole Studio 1 a now a much more flexible and amenable space for opera,
After my Breath – composer and librettist: Lisa Logan
Director: Maria Caldarone
Conductor: Beth Fitzpatrick
Performer: Emily Thorner
Eden 2.0Â – composer and conductor: William Gardner
Librettist: Alexi Peniguel
Director: Eleanor Burke
Performers: Richard Decker, Nathan Mercieca, Brenton Spiteri, Michael Temporal-Darell, Emma Warner
Until 18 July 2026
90 minutes with interval
Photo Credit: Marshall Stay