Straying from the brief

‘Praising! That’s it!’ Rilke exclaims in one of his ecstatic Sonnets to Orpheus. It seems to be an unconditional injunction, but he hadn’t tried being an opera critic, and I’d like to see anyone even try plausibly to praise either  of the two productions I saw this week. One was new and absolutely terrible, the other was old, neglected and may or may not be good — it wasn’t easy to judge. Tête à Tête is an opera company and enterprise that I have often admired and enjoyed, but its speciality is very brief works, which could hardly be staged alone, and which don’t demand of their librettist and composer that they write an extended piece with all the problems that involves. Inevitably, some of the composers whose work it puts on get the idea that, once a ten-minute piece has succeeded, they might have a go at something bigger, and in the case of Circus Tricks, text by Michael Henry and music by Adey Grummet (or the other way round — the programme states both), they have produced an opera that is slightly less than two hours long.

The set is attractive, colourful and evocative. We have a knife-thrower, an acrobat, a trapeze artist, a contortionist and a pony, as well as a cut-out elephant. The theme of the circus performer with his or her own dreadful private problems has been tackled before, and rather successfully: I Pagliacci is well on the road to immortality. Circus Tricks had better make the most of the few days so far allotted to it.

No complaints about the performers. The six-person band, mainly wind- and percussion-based, consists of tireless virtuosi from CHROMA. Every now and again an attractive idea pops up for one or another of them, but is lost in the ongoing aimless drive.