Peter Hoare (left) and Lisa Milne in Welsh National Opera's production of, The Sacrifice, at the Liverpool Empire Theatre _320
NEW opera is always going to be a challenge. It’s a challenge for the audience, certainly. It’s not a rehashed Boheme or Traviata.
The story will be unfamiliar and there’s no build-up to the sing-a- long aria which everybody knows.
It’s a challenge for the marketing people, since selling something new is always difficult. And it’s a challenge for the performers who are often pushed to the limits of their technical capabilities.
That’s why The Sacrifice, the new James MacMillan opera, commissioned with the support of Liverpool Culture Company, was eagerly awaited.
Perhaps too eagerly in some quarters, since the London press was not entirely complimentary at its Cardiff premiere barely a month ago.
But this performance in Liverpool, given by Welsh National Opera with the composer conducting, was an exhilarating – and harrowing – experience.
Harrowing because the story is triply tragic: a woman who loses her son, father and the affections of her husband within the space of the performance. It’s a story of love which is misplaced – much of the same operatic fodder, but with a new twist.
And what music. The extraor- dinarily powerful finale where the ever-excellent WNO Chorus performed largely unaccompanied or the beauty of the complex lines of the Requiem at the start of the third act. The wildly beautiful love duet in act two between Evan and Sian – sung by Leigh Melrose and Lisa Milne, who was an exceptionally powerful performer right through the opera.
The tragic figure of Mal – sung by Peter Hoare – was again quite exceptional, as was the WNO Orchestra, as ever excellent accompanists despite the demanding and complex nature of the score.
But it was MacMillan’s music which won through. There was a complex and intriguing web of affects. There were traces of high Romantic influence at times: the spirit of Wagner or Liszt was never far away. There was Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Copland, even. Despite all those influences, this was still a highly characteristic piece and one which certainly deserves a place in the repertoire.
