What’s the world coming to? Opera has been popping up lately in pubs, in disused tunnels, abandoned office blocks, grimy warehouses and now even in a car park. At its best, this willingness to take opera out of its comfort zone has been bracing. So it proved with London Contemporary Music Festival’s double bill, staged in Peckham’s multi-storey car park, which, unlikely as it seems, doubles as Frank’s Café.
Kate Whitley’s Roma, receiving its premiere, derives from David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, which she reduces to a 10-minute solo for baritone. To the accompaniment of six instruments, he wanders among the dining tables, singing about greed, morality and money. The view from the car park, taking in the Shard, Gherkin and Canary Wharf, makes an apposite backdrop.
The second opera is louder and longer. Gerald Barry’s La Plus Forte sets a Strindberg monologue and, like all Barry’s operas, functions beyond the edge of delirium. Two women sit in a café, one silent, the other (Madame X) anything but. As X slowly realises that she is talking to her husband’s mistress, Barry pushes her ever closer to hysteria. Allison Bell charts her emotional trajectory with uncanny precision, riding easily over the large, wind-heavy orchestra.
Both operas are conducted by Christopher Stark, while Igor Toronyi-Lalic’s spare production allows music and location to work together: passing trains, crashing trays and incessant chatter blend in perfectly. The ideal antidote to the sanitised safety of much of London’s new music scene.
London Contemporary Music Festival continues until Sun Aug 4 (lcmf.co.uk)
