A haunting tale

Simon Holt's new opera Who Put Bella In The Wych Elm? has a mysterious woman at the heart of the story. So, too, does the other major premiere at this year's Almeida Opera season: Elena Langer's The Girl Of Sand.

This, Langer's third opera as Jerwood composer in association with the Almeida, reunites the young Russian composer with Glyn Maxwell, librettist of her Ariadne, heard last year.

A reworking of the Russian folktale The Snow Maiden, The Girl Of Sand tells the story of Nina who arrives on an exotic tropical beach in a tattered coat, alienated from the beach bums who live only for the day, and driven to suicidal depression by nameless miseries of the past.

Langer's score is allusive, multilayered and often hauntingly beautiful. The timbral variety achieved from modest chamber forces (the excellent Almeida Ensemble under Gerry Cornelius) is impressive and the vocal writing is subtly nuanced while always providing a suitable vehicle for the text.

Anna Dennis is wonderfully expressive as the eponymous Girl, totally immersing herself in the part and, indeed, in the sea - there's a lot of real water in John Fulljames's imaginative production, designed by Soutra Gilmour. Andrew Slater and Richard Burkhard are admirable as her rival suitors.

Langer's opera is complemented by a series of dramatic miniatures each receiving its UK premiere. Sir Harrison Birtwistle's The Sadness Of Komachi, a plangent monodrama based on a Japanese Noh play, was effectively realised by tenor Nigel Robson and pianist Stephen Gutman. Richard Benjafield was the accomplished percussionist in Sciarrino's Esplorazione del bianco III as well as in Berio's Naturale, a piece that conjures the rawness and harshness (and perhaps the tedium) of Sicilian folk culture. The violist was Jane Atkins. More fun was E si Fussi Pisci for unaccompanied chorus, written not long before Berio's recent death.

The Girl Of Sand