Prescient then, terrifying now: The Handmaid’s Tale at English National Opera

It takes a courageous and clear-sighted author to stare into the abyss and confront one’s fears of a possible future. It takes an intelligent composer to turn a dense, intricately constructed novel into an opera worthy of the original. Margaret Atwood and Poul Ruders are exactly those things, as amply demonstrated last night in The Handmaid’s Tale at English National Opera.

The premise is that in the wake of an environmental disaster, the United States Government falls to a coup by the religious right, who impose a misogynist regime that makes life under the Taliban look like a picnic. So strongly does the narrative resonate with US political fears of today, with the Climate Crisis, the rise of Bible Belt fundamentalism and attacks on the Capitol, that it’s hard to believe that Atwood wrote the novel nearly forty years ago, in the Reagan era rather than the Trump one, and that Ruders started work on the opera less than a decade later.

In the novel, Atwood paints her picture in fine brush strokes: with every few paragraphs of Offred’s story, she reveals slightly more of the characteristics and history of her dystopian world. There isn’t time for any of that in a two-hour opera, so Ruders goes for a far more direct approach. The whimsical “historical notes” appended to the end of the novel are made into a framing device whereby a university professor explicitly tells us the premise in advance and the ambiguity of the ending. During the course of the opera, Offred does a lot of speaking to camera to give us her thoughts; we repeatedly see her fearful memory of the moment her child was taken from her. The opera presents the most important events in the novel compactly and cogently. It’s an intelligent and meticulous construction.

It’s a large and very strong cast who all performed well. The role of Offred is extremely demanding, requiring a singer to be the centre of attention for almost every scene and to maintain unflagging intensity, with many of the passages in a tessitura alarmingly high for a mezzo-soprano. Kate Lindsey (one of several returning from ENO’s premiere of this production in 2022) met every one of those demands magnificently, particularly impressive in producing a strong and beautiful sound at the top of her range. Other standouts were Avery Amereau, veering between overbearing and pathetic as Serena Joy, the barren Wife required to offer a succession of handmaids, James Creswell’s stentorian Commander, to her husband as alternative child-bearing options, and Rachel Nicholls, giving a powerful delivery as Aunt Lydia, the voice of religious authority. Nadine Benjamin was a notable Moira, a fountain of irrepressible, cheerful normality.

Ruders’ orchestral writing consistently holds the attention and is well balanced between raising of tension and lyrical interludes. The base of the score is strings, often high register, ostinato violins; colour is added by a varied battery of percussion instruments for the more lyrical moments and by heavy brass for the tense ones. In a sarcastic touch, the tune of Amazing Grace is frequently woven into the score, sometimes straight, sometimes distorted. Joana Carneiro had the ENO Orchestra on top form, nicely balanced and exploring all the edges of what the different instrument combinations can do.

I am less convinced by Ruders’ writing for voice, which gives plenty of scope for the singers to produce a beautiful sound or to add character to the dialogue, but which does little in itself to stir the emotions. Much as in a film score, the music seems very much subservient to the drama rather than playing an equally important role in the proceedings. The overall effect was that I was completely engaged in the politics and dystopia of the piece, but less so in empathising with its characters.

Director Annilese Miskimmon and designer Annemarie Woods’ staging is uncomplicated and effective. The handmaids’ red costumes are dictated by the novel; the other costumes (assault rifles and camo for the soldiers, dress uniform for The Commander, and so on) ring true to their characters. Stage movement and lighting are artfully done to shift us between scenes with the minimum of physical movement of sets – the various characters’ rooms, the public spaces, “The Wall” of executed criminals (the hanging corpses of the book have been softened to photographs in this staging).

It makes for an evening of highly dramatic opera, which leaves you pondering the politics of today’s United States with no little trepidation and which shows off ENO at their very best.