UK Edition
Review
The Hunting Gun, Aldeburgh Festival, review: this new opera by Thomas Larcher has a rare beauty and addictive charm
The rumour machine whispered that this would be something special and different – a new opera by the Austrian composer Thomas Larcher, first performed at last summer’s Bregenz Festival, that contained a world of sensual beauty that contemporary music is commonly thought to lack. And so it proved: The Hunting Gun has its flaws, and I guess that it is too austere, too pure and spare, to catch on with a wider public. But a rare beauty it undoubtedly has.
Based on a novel by the Japanese writer Yasushi Inoue, it is dreamily distanced within a nameless poem about a man called Misugi and three women in his life: Midori, his long-suffering wife; Saiko, his lover, who finally poisons herself in despair; and Shoko, Saiko’s bitterly resentful daughter. Over 13 scenes, lasting 100 minutes and divided into three acts (but seamlessly played here without an interval), we are shown the interlocking emotional history of these four characters as it emerges over a quarter of a century.
The significance of the titular gun is left obscure: it belongs to Misugi, and perhaps simply represents the capacity men have to hurt and kill. One is certainly left with a sense of the pain, some of it unwitting, that human relationships entail; whether Misugi blames himself for the chaos around him is less clear.
I could wish the opera 20 minutes shorter; the drama seems to stagnate as the three women rehearse their woes, and the production doesn’t help by failing to clarify a time-frame that rocks back and forth. But Larcher’s music invests this haunted tale with music of such sweetly seductive charm that it becomes like some addictive drug that you can’t stop inhaling.
Alternating passages of exquisitely delicate filigree with explosive waves of tumultuous sublimity, embracing thrilling dissonance and chorale-like harmonic tranquillity, the score plays in and out of tonality, using a staggering range of conventional instruments and percussive implements (including billiard balls, mixing bowls and milk pans). Such is the range of colours and sonorities evoked that I found it hard to believe that only 42 players – collectively the magnificent Knussen Chamber Orchestra, masterfully conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth – were producing it.
The vocal writing is lyrically expressive and richly responsive to the text (the opera is sung in German). The mistake Larcher makes is one common to his generation (Adès and Benjamin are also susceptible) – an over-reliance on the screamily high soprano register. A corrective lesson is offered by Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, where the leading roles are sung within the range encompassed by Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and one hears very word.
Five singers give deeply committed performances, with the three women (Sarah Aristidou, Giulia Peri and Iris van Wijnen) rising to staggering feats of virtuosity. The finely executed staging, directed by Karl Markovics and designed by Katharina Woeppermann, uses subtle video and draws on Noh traditions. Despite my morning-after reservations, I was entranced, and await Larcher’s next opera with impatience.
A further performance takes place on Sunday 9 June. Tickets: 01728 687100; www.snapemaltings.co.uk