Passions hit the mark

A musical friend describes a certain composer of musicals as "blessed with the gift of ignorance". Identifying the composer would not be useful, but the point is this: he has a knack of using stock phrases that other composers would reject as being simply the first thing that had come into their heads. Yet these obvious emotional triggers get straight to the dramatic point.

Jonathan Dove's music for L'altra Euridice (The Other Euridice) is similarly shameless. Strings, reeds, harpsichord and archlute flourish and shimmer in emulation of Monteverdi - specifically, Orfeo, since the monologue they are accompanying is the legend of Orpheus in the Underworld, told this time from the point of view of Pluto. Musical sound effects (storms, rippling water) are entirely conventional.

The result may not make one eager to investigate Dove's instrumental music, but it does reveal a man entirely at home in the theatre. The flux of dramatic tension is clear-cut and embracing. Baritone Omar Ebrahim gives a typically whole-hearted, dangerous but musically secure performance, but I wish the programme booklet had offered some sort of synopsis rather than a personal reminiscence by the translator of Italo Calvino's text, Adam Pollock.

There was a lack of helpful information on this triple bill, given two performances over the weekend. I expect that the exciting Ariadne, by Elena Langer, was a world premiere, but we were not told. Over an expressionist accompaniment dominated by dry timbres, soprano Anna Dennis sang Glyn Maxwell's adaptation of Ovid with a compelling mixture of classical purity and scorching passion, while flinging herself about at risk to limb, if not life.

In an evening of vocal tours de force, smoky-voiced soprano Kathryn Harries was tremendous in Stephen Oliver's Waiting. Writing melodically but originally came naturally to this sadly short-lived composer, but with the accompanying piano only a couple of yards from my left ear and the singer at the far end of the hall, I can't pretend to have got even the gist of the text. As Harries was playing three characters at once, this was something of a handicap to my appreciation.

Waiting/Adriadne/L'altra Euridice