Four play

Going to the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith for the annual season of Tête à Tête is a chancy affair, though one can be sure of a very high standard of performance, both vocally and instrumentally. It helps, of course, that none of the studios is large, so the singers can produce their voices at conversational level, though many of them choose not to. As always, there is a big range of operas to choose from, so the choice of the pair I shall be discussing was based on no principle other than that the subject of one of them intrigued me, and while I was about it I saw another. In fact, I saw two more, but they were very brief, about ten minutes each, and performed in the Riverside Studios foyer, as a warm-up for the audience. I found them both inscrutable, though they seemed to give pleasure to people who were quicker on the uptake than I am.

The first substantial piece I saw, lasting 75 minutes, was The Shadow of the Wave, by Tom Floyd, who has composed several works for the stage; he may also have been the conductor, who isn’t mentioned in the programme. This opera is a well-made piece, with many features in common with the well-made plays that used to be common in the West End, perhaps still are. There are two couples — sophisticated, articulate, heavy drinkers: one couple is an artist and tortured,  and his wife; the other her neurotic sister and her businessman husband. As they get into various kinds of upset, they are accompanied by a 14-piece orchestra. There is also a mysterious figure, unmentioned in the cast list and unlisted among the performers, an oriental counter-tenor who watches the proceedings and periodically sings eerily about them; in some ways he is the most striking feature of the work, and I’d have been glad of some mention or explanation.