Experimental, disabled-led theatre company Graeae here give us their first opera. Composed by Errollyn Wallen to a libretto by Nicola Werenowska and Selina Mills, The Paradis Files deals with the life of Maria Theresia von Paradis (1759-1824), a blind composer, pianist, singer and teacher, feted Europe-wide in her day and admired by, among others, Salieri, Haydn and Mozart. Much of her music is lost, and history primarily remembers her for her parents’ unavailing search for a cure for her blindness, rather than for her own often considerable achievements. Wallen and her librettists attempt to redress the balance by giving us a portrait of a self-determined woman of considerable spirit and courage.
The primary focus falls on the relationship between Theresia (Bethan Langford) and her estranged mother, Hilde (Maureen Braithwaite), and the bulk of the narrative unfolds in flashback during a fraught, if eventually reconciliatory confrontation between the two women at the school for blind musicians that Paradis established in her 30s in Vienna. We witness the young Theresia fending off the attentions of her teacher Salieri (Ben Thapa) and rebelling against the ghastly regime of attempted cures imposed by quacks and specialists at her parents’ behest. The excitement of concert tours gives way to the tragic stillbirth of a baby, fathered by one of several lovers taken at the height of her career. A chorus of Gossips follows her every move, while her maid Gerda (Ella Taylor) consoles, comments and cajoles.
