Germany Rebecca Saunders, Lash: Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin / Enno Poppe (conductor). Deutsche Oper Berlin, 20.6.2025. (MB)
Having been an avid follower of Rebecca Saunders’s music since my first encounter on the Wigmore Corridor in 2012, principally in Germany (Berlin and Munich specifically) but in addition in London, I used to be excited to study her first opera can be given on the Deutsche Oper — and nonetheless extra excited to have the ability to go to for the premiere. Equally fascinating and exploratory in vocal and non-vocal music and with a wonderful monitor document in selection of verbal texts, Saunders appeared in some ways an excellent candidate for operatic composition. It will on the very least be fascinating to see what that improvement entailed — and so it was.
Lash—Acts of Love, to offer it its full title, just isn’t a traditional opera. No surprises there, one would possibly say. But if it has parts of one thing extra installation-like, extra in Ed Atkins’s libretto (if one can name it that, Saunders additionally credited for conversion of the preliminary textual content) and basic dramaturgy than in Saunders’s rating, it actually qualifies as an opera. The Deutsche Oper did it proud, with Bush Moukarzel of Lifeless Centre; video work by Sébastien Dupouey; a solid of three really excellent singers, Anna Prohaska, Sarah Maria Solar, and Noa Frankel, plus the equally glorious actor Katja Kolm, all clearly working collectively and filmed dwell by Nadja Krüger; and the home orchestra on effective type certainly, carried out by Enno Poppe. Every of the feminine voices, certainly their our bodies extra usually, is meant as the inspiration of what we hear and largely succeeds in conveying that sense: 4 elements of the identical lady, not solely mirroring, typically explicitly, however forming — themselves or fairly herself, and the photographs round them.
What a welcome change, furthermore, it was to have so little of the male standpoint (and gaze). Certainly, if that would have been excluded extra tightly nonetheless – one in all many causes, I worry, to have wished for a special libretto – the work would possibly effectively have been enhanced. Not that there was any cause to be ungrateful for Enno Poppe’s unfailingly alert, comprehending, dramatically alive conducting, nor for the excellence of the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, male musicians included — and first amongst equals, these musicians on the stage in the course of the third act. Maybe, although, much less might need been extra. The excellence of efficiency, the excellence of the composition additionally served, maybe sarcastically, to level to a scarcity in Atkins’s textual content (or no matter we need to name it).
Intercourse and loss of life are and all the time have been inextricably interlinked. This presentation of ‘a lady … suspended within the fast aftermath of a loss of life,’ recounting ‘fantasies and reminiscences of affection and loss and fucking and illness, kissing, eyeballs, genitals, fingertips, lips, and lashes — every scoured for consoling significance to carry again loss of life’s meaninglessness,’ has a acknowledged concept: ‘via the imminence of her personal physique, her personal mortality, she rediscovers loss because the precondition of expertise — of affection.’ It isn’t skilled as a story; nor would one count on it to be. However Saunders’s writing, via three acts spanning nearly two hours, attracts it collectively, like an important symphonic poem with voices. It grows in depth – judged, I believe, by no matter parameter(s) – and provides the sturdy impression of binding the work collectively. It additionally turns into extra instrumental/orchestral, each on the stage and across the auditorium, but in addition within the proportion of writing — or so it appeared to me. ‘Natural’ is likely an epithet outdated by at the very least two centuries for such writing, however maybe I is perhaps indulged right here, if solely within the Hegelian sense of a musical owl of Minerva spreading its wings on the efficiency’s nightfall.
That stated – and with all of the caveats regarding a single listening to/viewing – my expectations have been solely partly fulfilled. That is owed in no half to the problem and particularity of writing opera, even for in any other case glorious composers. With the most effective will on the earth, Schubert, usually recognised to be one of many supreme vocal and instrumental composers within the Western custom, was not a big composer of opera, although his operas are removed from with out curiosity. I couldn’t assist however wonder if Saunders’s musical and dramatic items weren’t so readily operatic, whether or not a large-scale concert-work corresponding to YES (evaluation click on right here) have been extra her factor. My issues, although, didn’t actually lie there. On the post-show reception, Intendant Dietmar Schwarz described Atkins’s textual content as ‘postdramatic’. I suppose so, if, as Hans-Thies Lehmann kind of meant the time period, we take a look at what’s held to fall underneath that umbrella fairly than utilizing it to outline. Whether or not it really works effectively, on this context or another, is one other matter.
Ambiguity is commonly a very good factor. That as to whose the ‘lash’ is – the lady’s, the creator’s (i.e. Atkins’s personal private-public monologue), or anything – has a lot to be stated for it, although it does not likely appear to steer wherever, with out that failure to steer wherever making an evident level. Finally, the music and the performances appear to shoulder all of the work, hamstrung by a stream of consciousness that’s hardly Joyce or Beckett. Fixed repetition of ‘fucking’ and so forth is probably not meant to shock, but comes throughout as pondering itself edgier than it truly is; hand on coronary heart, I discovered it greater than a little bit tedious, extra akin to a little bit boy shouting ‘take a look at me’ than something that may have been claimed for it (and likely might be).
I felt ambivalent, then, and never a little bit saddened to take action. The Blue Lady (evaluation click on right here), seen at London’s Linbury Theatre in 2022, struck me as an finally extra profitable instance of what postdramatic, feminist opera (versus postdramatic and/or feminist productions of operatic repertoire) is perhaps — at the very least restricted to phrases, their dramaturgy, and to a sure extent their additional implications, versus musical high quality (or efficiency). By the identical token, I actually felt a need to revisit the work, to proceed, like the lady at its centre, to piece collectively my expertise, though maybe not instantly. I shall solely too fortunately discover myself ashamed regarding preliminary lack of expertise. Within the meantime, a handful of boos (develop up!) and a houseful of rapturous applause instructed a extra simple story.
Mark Berry
Manufacturing:
Director – Lifeless Centre (Bush Moukarzel)
Designs – Nina Wetzel
Lighting – Jörg Schuchardt
Sound design – Arne Vierck
Video – Sébastien Dupouey
Dramaturgy – Sebastian Hanusa
Solid:
A – Anna Prohaska
S – Sarah Maria Solar
N – Noa Frenkel
Ok – Katja Kolm
Dwell Digicam – Nadja Krüger
Synthesiser, Piano – Christoph Grund, Ernst Surberg
Electrical Guitar – Adrian Pereyra
Stage percussion – Thomas Döringer, Florian Glotz, Konstantin Tiersch, Laslo Vierk
Field operators – Nana Ajei Boateng, Zé de Pavia, Lennie Fanslau, Victor Naumov, Paula Schumm
