Opera Reviews
29 March 2024
Untitled Document

An intense, profound experience



by Catriona Graham
MacMillan: Clemency
Scottish Opera
Edinburgh International Festival
August 2012

Photo: Stephen CummiskeyIt would be fair to say that James MacMillan is Scotland's leading composer, with a track record in sacred music. His new opera Clemency, with a libretto by Michael Symmonds Roberts, premiered last year at the Royal Opera House and has another outing with all but one of the same cast at the Edinburgh International Festival.

The stage is presented as a triptych in a gilded frame. On one side, the fairly spartan kitchen, in the middle, the living-room with a dining table, French doors open to the yard outside and tree branches poking through the windows. On the other side is the other half of the dining-table.

The opera starts with the sound of bird-song, an aircraft passing overhead, traffic-noise from the street. Sarah (Janis Kelly) enters the kitchen and makes little patties, puts them in the oven. Abraham (Grant Doyle) comes in from work, counts his money and starts singing - in Hebrew? Sarah brings in lunch and he sings a grace, at the end of which the string orchestra makes its first entrance, while they eat. Then they sing of their love and long-lasting relationship - a charming song, full of warmth and affection.

Three young men arrive and Abraham offers them food. Together they make their surprising announcement - in a year they will return and Sarah will have born a son. Sarah is amused - Kelly's voice is full but delicate. The three men are a bit miffed and sing of the horrors of contemporary living. Sarah and Abraham, appalled, cannot believe. Doyle sings with an understated gravitas, which balances Kelly's lighter sound.

The three men - Christopher Diffey, Adam Green and Eamonn Mulhall - blend well, at time sounding like one voice (of God?), at others, clearly individual. When they prepare to leave, Sarah and Abraham realise they are going to wreak vengeance on the local towns which are dens of iniquity.

Now MacMillan's music is full of passion, as Abraham bargains with the men, to save the towns, beating them down from fifty blameless souls required to set aside destruction to five … and he still tries as they leave. Meanwhile, Sarah sings her version of the Magnificat - will her newborn child, in a year's time, see the thumbprints of smoke from a valley on fire?

The orchestral textures are rich and varied - frantic strings when the three men first arrive and ask Abraham 'Where is your wife'; she is in the kitchen, ready to defend herself with a bread knife. Or, when first the men start to leave, their voices are paired with the double bass.

Director Dan Ayling, designers Alex Eales (set), John Bright (costumes) Warren Letton (lighting) and Joseph Alford (movement), and conductor Derek Clark are the creative team for what is a short piece - only three-quarters of an hour in length. But what an intense, profound experience they, the singers and the orchestra produce.

Text © Catriona Graham
Photo © Stephen Cummiskey
Support us by buying from amazon.com!