PROJECTS
Reviews
An eerie, frightening and astonishing Big Brother
The world premiere of conducting maestro and composer Lorin Maazel’s first opera, 1984, with libretto taken from George Orwell’s great novel, was an amazing experience. Its opening, two nights before the General Election, though planned two years in advance by the Royal Opera, was an extraordinary coincidence.
To watch Big Brother and The Party’s thought police and hear Newspeak and Doublethink as we prepared to decide whether to continue with Tony Blair’s Britain was an eerie, even frightening experience.
It was made by the more so brilliant Canadian Robert Lepage’s inspired staging, superbly designed and lit, and magnificently performed by cast, chorus and orchestra, directed by the composer himself. To write your first opera when already in your 70s, and with a packed international conducting career, including the music directorship of the New York Philharmonic, is some achievement. To compose two and-a-half hours of powerfully dramatic, sometimes hauntingly romantic, always entirely accessible music, with influences from the 2Oth century mainstream particularly Puccini to Broadway musicals, blues and barbershop, makes it all the more remarkable. So often contemporary operas leave the audience floundering but, here, we were pinned to our seats.
The production, with its revolving stage, projections, close-ups and eternal image of Big Brother watching you was cinematic in its grip and Lepage’s inspired direction meant that characters responded to each other with astonishing intensity.
The whole cast were first class, and the Royal Opera Chorus was formidable. Star performances came from Simon Keenlyside, whose gripping portrayal of Winston Smith will live long in my memory, from Nancy Gustafson as Julia, and from Richard Margison, Lawrence Brownlee, Graeme Danby and Diana Damrau, whose wake-up call by the Gym Instructress was a tour de force. Actor Jeremy Irons supplies sepulchral voice-over.
Top price for 1984 is just £50 and you can see it on Wednesday or Saturday. I beg you to go, or, if you can’t, listen to the BBC Radio 3 broadcast on May 23.
