Ding, dong, the Sphinx is dead: Greek at ROH Linbury

Philip Glass finds a new simplicity in an impressive première production of The Trial from Music Theatre Wales. 

Music Theatre Wales’ production of Salvatore Sciarrino’s The Killing Flower begins in darkness. Michael McCarthy’s highly stylized production fits with the music, which is a fitting interpretation of extreme emotions: love that knows no control and no reason.

Combining Steven Berkoff’s brutally in-yer-face libretto with the gutsy music of Mark-Anthony Turnage was bound to be an explosive mix. The result was Greek, Turnage’s first opera (or, more accurately, Singspiel), first performed in 1988 and now given an inspiring new airing from Music Theatre Wales. Berkoff’s text was adapted from his own play, based on the Oedipus myth.

When is an opera not an opera? Some would answer this question with “when it’s a musical”, but such a response says more about our own preconceptions of what opera and musical theatre represent than it does about the works themselves.

Netia Jones is a visionary stage practitioner, but this show is a rare misjudgement.

Scottish Opera’s production of Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton's The Trial says less about Kafka’s vision of an absurd world and more about the absurdity of contemporary operatic conventions.