The Devil Inside, Peacock Theatre, review: An ambitious but misguided opera

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Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Bottle Imp is a Faust-story about a magic bottle whose malevolent spirit will grant its owner all their desires, but at a price – their soul will be forever damned if they still own it when they die. Composer Stuart MacRae and librettist Louise Welsh have renamed it The Devil Inside, and re-set it in the world of twenty-first century property development; they’ve given the moral dilemma running through it an entirely modern twist. After its Glasgow premiere, this work’s co-production between Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales is now on national tour.

I scented danger as soon as three of the four protagonists first came on song: the orchestral accompaniment was exquisitely intricate, but the throbbing vocal lines – sub-Britten at his most climactically intense - were attached to dialogue which could have come straight out of the Archers. And so it went on, for nearly two hours. I couldn’t believe a word of it, and that killer-question for any opera – why are they singing these words, rather than just speaking them? – simply refused to go away. My heart goes out to the heroic cast and the brilliant ensemble in the pit, who deserve an infinitely better vehicle for their talents.