The Mask of Orpheus, ENO, London Coliseum, review: for the average audience, this is a physical and mental ordeal

It will never catch on; there is something beyond Wagnerian about its ambition. Over three hours long, often fiercely cacophonous, with a preposterously arcane text lacking any narrative coherence, The Mask of Orpheus makes no effort to be loved.

But something of incontrovertible magnificence is presented here: using a battery of electronic sound as well as more conventional instrumental forces, Harrison Birtwistle has hewn a score of unique imaginative complexity and aesthetic integrity, built on Peter Zinovieff’s multi-dimensional Cubistic exploration of the Greek myth of the bard who tracks his dead wife Eurydice to Hades. And like some great rocky outcrop, the result commands awed respect.

There may be one story here, but it is told many different ways, without beginning or end, through music that is intricately repetitive and highly schematic. Broadly, the first act shows Orpheus losing Eurydice; the astonishing second act takes him down to Hades through 17 arches or musical episodes; the third act traces him as man, hero and myth.

There are no loose tunes or flights of impressionistic fancy, and no stable realistic characters either; both music and action are densely ritualistic, its figures and movements constantly refracted, reinterpreted, and contradicted.

The orchestra contains no strings but much percussion, and the vocal lines are fragmentary and angular: much use is also made of speech. Although amplification is used, the singers have little hope of getting the words across the barrage of noise – something that reflects the music’s mercilessness, its refusal to compromise with expectations or give generous pleasure.