Not Only Opera

Passion
London Sinfonietta, Exaudi, Music Theatre Wales, National Dance Company Wales
Queen Elizabeth Hall
KK10, £18, upgraded to a nearer seat
13 October 2018
Southbank page

There are right and wrong levels of abstraction and this production of Dusapin’s Passion defines the wrong one. Despite truly excellent singing from Jennifer France, Johnny Herford and Exaudi, despite the professionalism of National Dance Company Wales, despite the precision and jaw-dropping patience of the London Sinfonietta and conductor Geoffrey Paterson, despite even quite attractive set design, Passion bored me literally to tears of ennui, as I fought the urge to look at my watch while minutes of eternity dripped by, as I enviously eyed less loss-averse people who snuck out the door, and as I generally rued the set of decisions that had brought me to this unhappy place.

The whole has been extravagantly well rehearsed, which is unfortunately insufficient sustenance on its own and cannot paper over the omissions that make Passion so impregnable. Omission number one: despite the sterling efforts of all the singers and a lot of amplification the words are almost entirely inaudible, which is not surprising because the orchestra is not in a pit and the stage is placed behind the orchestra, and the singing demanded is light and high not big and beefy. I needed surtitles.

Omission number two: I could not discern any of the rationale to place Exaudi and some of the orchestra off stage and to play them entirely amplified through speakers. I presumed Exaudi had been pre-recorded – good because they’re so perfect, bad because there was some extra performance component that might have given me a bit more to go on. The harpsichordist was nowhere to be seen, despite playing throughout, but we were able to watch the oud player sit and do absolutely nothing for 70 minutes in a kind of miserable mirror of inactivity that my anguishedly bored brain could have done without.

Omission number three. I couldn’t for the life of me work out how the choreography connected to the music. I know this is a bit of a theme nowadays and it’s not always a bad thing, but here we had five people, of unknown connection to the unknown story (at least, I assume they’re neither of Orpheus or Eurydice, but really I have nothing to go on either way), doing random generic contemporary dance moves in a very elegant but also completely meaningless way. I don’t know how different it would have looked if this had been the first time the dancers had heard the music and they were individually freestyling.

I tried just closing my eyes or just focussing on the orchestra but the Dupasin is insufficiently abstract for that. I think the piece really is intended as a platform for multimedia performance – a very atmospheric setting, a counterpoint for external artistic thought. I was, of course, turning my attention to it already annoyed and probably not disposed to hear the best in it: but I’m hung up on what it lacks – rhythmic motion, new harmonic ground (the whole piece seems to exist on a single pedal note, which in other circumstances could be quite impressive), shifting colours, even any invention in the use of electronics. It’s very pretty wallpaper but not the main event.

So this felt a very, very long 80 minutes. But it might just have been me – the petite audience responded with whoops and cheers, complete with a one-man standing ovation.