★★☆☆☆
Does the world need another opera in which an entirely male creative team attempt to dissect the mind of an “unhinged” woman? There are thousands already, a handful even psychologically perceptive — but the long, dreary new example premiered by English National Opera isn’t one of them.
In one way, however, Nico Muhly has composed the perfect music for a story about a sexually repressed kleptomaniac. His score has hardly a spark of discernible passion, but a barrelful of secondhand ideas mined from greater composers.
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1964 film of Winston Graham’s novel may have had creaky plotting and creepy misogyny, but the screen crackled with sexual tension. Oh, for even a flicker of that here! I don’t blame the main singers — Daniel