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Flight.
 The Adelaide Festival has an important history when it comes to the mounting of operas. Past seasons have included works by Walton, Adams, Sculthorpe and Prokofiev. This year's festival delivers a double whammy of sorts for not only are we to witness the Australian premiere of Jonathan Dove's airport comedy 'Flight' (this has proved to be rather ironic in itself, given recent local problems associated with the opening of the new Adelaide airport), but sees, for the first time in Australia, the arrival of the world renowned Glyndebourne Festival Opera Company from the UK.
Commissioned by Glyndebourne, 'Flight' is a rare thing - an approachable example of contemporary opera that is both humourous and fast becoming incredibly popular in Europe and America. Set in an airport departure lounge, the work presents ten would-be airline passengers, stranded overnight due to an electrical storm and this throws the variety of characters in existential crisis.
This Adelaide production features a variety of local and international singers in a remounting of the original English production with the expatriate conductor Brad Cohen leading the Adelaide Symphony. Whilst she was taking a break from local rehearsals I had the chance to chat with the upcoming English soprano Claire Ormshaw, who will be taking the part of Tina for the local production.
Though specialising in Handelian and Mozartian roles for both the English National Opera and Glyndebourne companies, Claire spent a period during last year's festival getting to know the role. As we are somewhat distanced from new British opera here in the Antipodes, we commenced by discussing the position of contemporary works and their part in English opera.
"Jonathan Dove's a pretty big deal at the moment. I remember when 'Flight' returned to Glyndebourne last year (its premiere took place during the 1998 festival), he also put on a couple of his smaller operas and they were done as part of the chorus scheme and I thought they were fantastic. The chorus consists of young aspiring soloists and the ENO are doing a lot more contemporary opera now too.
"I do think that as a young singer when you go through college, you're brought up on the Mozart operas and Puccini, Verdi and Wagner and to be honest, I wasn't really all that aware of contemporary music. It was only as I got a little bit older - I think that Britten was the newest opera I'd done - and then things started coming out of the woodwork especially when the companies started to programme and commission more."
Whilst my experience with new operas in English tended to focus upon American composers like Philip Glass and John Adams, I mentioned to Claire that I was genuinely amazed at just how approachable Jonathan Dove's opera actually is - to the point of being 'easy on the ear'. This is a fact with which she readily concurs.
"I agree. I think it is. The very first time that I listened to it, I was quite nervous because - as I say - I haven't actually done much in the way of new music before. With Mozart, the music makes sense. You know where it's going and my brain and training was tuned into that particular style. The more I listened to it... You know so much new music is not easy on the ear, and this is just so beautiful and it's in such an eclectic mix of styles. Yet somehow it all makes sense.
"You can identify his style straight away. If I heard any other music by Jonathan now, I would recognise it. Even what I initially thought of as complicated isn't at all. It's very clever and yet easy at the same time - like the vocal fugue near the end is fantastic and so beautiful."
'Flight' is quite humourous and ingenious at the same time. In a way Dove's subverting what we normally take opera to be. He places a countertenor as one of the central characters rather than resorting to the usual soprano / tenor love axis and yet it works so well. At times the rhythmic drive of the work is reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein and then there's that comfortable meshing of language and music - and that's quite rare.
"Yes. I'm in agreement with you. Since its premiere this piece has done extremely well and has become popular. Very few singers have become involved in it and I'm very pleased that I've been asked to do it. The composer has shown that it is possible to write modern music that has a basis in traditional tonality. There's much in it that has been influenced by earlier English composers - from Purcell through to Britten and yet it's still a modern if not a postmodern work for our time, here and now. I think it's brilliant and have no hesitation in asking my agent that should a Tina be needed, then I'm available.
"Some singers have been involved from the beginning like Nuala [Willis], whilst our fabulous countertenor David Walker received rave reviews for his part in the recent American premiere. I studied it at Glyndebourne last year and was extremely lucky as we were given about five weeks to work on it and we've had such a short time here. If I didn't know it as well as I do, it would be quite scary. We've all been brought together for this production and everybody's so good in their roles, completely believable for 'Flight' is a naturalistic opera and yet it's highly stylised too."
Brett Allen-Bayes
 | 'Flight' departs (hummmm) at the Festival Theatre from Fri 3 March. |
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