Between Worlds
Tansey Davies
Barbican Theatre, London
Between Worlds is the first operatic commission composed by Tansy Davies, with a libretto by Nick Drake and directed by Deborah Warner.
Between Worlds is a spiritual, poetic and ultimately uplifting drama, based on the events of 9/11 but focussing particularly on the relationships and emotions of the people affected. This new opera addresses one of the most significant events of the twenty-first century, bringing the universal operatic themes of tragedy, loss, courage, grief and healing into a contemporary context. It is the second ENO production to be co-commissioned by the Barbican, following Sunken Garden which played in the Theatre in 2013.
Michael Levine’s three level set works well, these people are removed from each other and yet touch, and over all the angelic/shamanic presence of counter tenor Andrew Watts sees all and anticipates action.
This constant ethereal presence which is detached from the main action yet seemingly aware of it and the narrative flow is both distracting and piercing, it seems to be beyond care of consideration of the desperation and despair on stage, it’s a glassy sheer thing beyond the judgement which every moment of this piece brings with it and it’s a confusing presence.
The chorus stare out at us, and one by one the main protagonists dissolve out of this crowd forming into momentary real characters, the lover, the mother, the manager, the cleaner, before taking their places on the next level in an office on one of the higher floors of the World Trade Towers. Each of their final interactions with family heavy with meaning.
The simplicity works to expose the complexity of the music. Gerry Cornelius brings as much as he can out of the tortured tonal climatic reaches which collapse and subside into the foam of echoed memory, but this music and story is too big, too powerful and sometimes although trying very hard to reach sublime it returns to the subtle, the understated, the reflective. The music veers away from drama, as does the action and brings us back to the simple, the understandable, the moment. The ending fantasy of harp, strings and high woodwind catches the breath as it fades. I was astonished.
Without any kind of knowledge of what’s happening or why the characters are indeed between two worlds, this is a moment, a time thats seared on all our minds and then played over and over and over again, for these characters it is just happening, the once and only awful dreadful time. They cannot see, as we did – the outside – they are inside looking out, they are not forced as we were to observe the horror of the fall. Their lives, their honest breathing moments are portrayed as the normal moments that we each and every day perform, without thinking about them, but there those moments are laden with such portents of doom that they can hardly be watched. The last kiss, the last farewell, a dinner plan never fulfilled, a kiss missed, a rushed goodbye, it´s simple and devastating.
There is huge beauty in this horror, such vivid light from this pressing darkness, the ordinary made sacred and how these small moments hold all the feeling of the end of these lives and it’s a reflection of the all encompassing and redeeming power of Love, it´s supremely catholic in that way and the piece echoes the progress and internal structure of the latin funeral mass.
Eric Greene as the grieving janitor marshalls people to accept their fate and his resonant voice kept the metronomic beat of these last moments.
Rhian Lois is transfixing as she sends her final moments of love to her passionate lesbian lover.
Clare Presland as a panicky, fearful mother trembles with emotion and regret and Philip Rhodes brings all the power of his voice to bear on his arrogant, unbelieving struggle to accept the truth.
Ever magnificent Susan Bickley´s mother forced to watch her sons final hours on each and every screen is a tour de force of agony and beseeching love. She was superb.
Suspended dancers writhed in mid air, not falling but turning and the choreography was ethereal and poignant, with one tremendous moment of a dancer being spun in ever greater arcs until they were let go of, lost to needful grasp and they rose up and out of the staging.
To see Tansey Davis talking about the development of the opera, click here:
We know this narrative, have had it dissected so many times that to have to think and experience the moments of the people not as numbers, statistics or world changing events but as people is beautiful and transcendent and makes the unfolding horror bearable.
There is an eerie calm on stage, all the horror takes place off stage, we hear of it, but never see it, the crowded screaming panicked stairwells, the poor souls leaping from the flame and the ultimate collapse of the towers. We are as ignorant of developments as the people trapped on the office floors. The symbolic and simple portrayals of the fall of the towers with sheets of paper which almost without sound or warning collapse into a heap of farewell messages and scribbled hopes.
The Barbican was silent for both moments of collapse, a collective intake and holding of breath, I expected something more, I expected more drama and this was withheld for a more fearful contemplative moment which was all the more powerful for its lack of drama and noise.
The ending of slow silent withdrawal from the stage with some flickering candles taking the presence of the singers is also full of dumb shock, was it over? was that it? It seemed impossible to have finished so soon. It’s a short piece at one and a half hours without interval but after the constant presence of the music rising and settling like an ebbing tide of atonement it was suddenly silent. An aftershock at the opera is always a stunning moment, it’s rare they come so quietly, so contemplatively and so effectively as this.
This is a modern narrative finding its voice for perhaps the first time, a heartless moment being given some soul back. By projecting all the action back on the people inside we are forced to think again about this most hollywood of terrorist outrages and not see it as an attack on our civilization but as a personal loss, of lover, sister, son, of neighbour, friend and colleague.
This is where Davis is at her most effective and touching, these moments of the personal reflective which we witness, the small moments of humanity, of hope and of ultimate recognition of saying the things to the people we love that they most need to hear. That we all need to hear.
I left thoughtful and moved.
Recommended
The Barbican
Runs until April 24, 2015
For more information or to book tickets, click here: