In the feverish build up to Festen, Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera to a libretto by Lee Hall, one question has dominated. Why make an opera based on Thomas Vinterberg’s cult 1998 film, in which a son accuses his father of child abuse? The implication: why not think of something new. Since nearly the entire operatic repertoire, from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607) to Puccini’s Tosca onward, is based on extant sources – myth, plays, novels and, now it exists, cinema – the question should hardly detain us, beyond initial acknowledgment. Opera needs stories that can be sung.
Festen, as well as being a dark exploration of human frailty, offers the potential for arias, choruses, crowd scenes, intimate duets, orchestral interludes: the stuff of opera. The result, which finds Turnage (b.1960) at the peak of his powers, is a dazzling and jubilantly entertaining work. It was premiered last Tuesday by the Royal Opera, conducted by Edward Gardner, directed by Richard Jones and designed by Miriam Buether, with a flawless cast, orchestra and chorus.
