Not for the first time in an opera by George Benjamin, to a libretto by Martin Crimp, the subject appears specific: a dead child, a mother, the search for a way to bring her son back to life. The reality is more elusive. Their fourth collaboration, Picture a day like this, offers an inquiry into the human condition compressed into its 70-minute duration. Can anyone ever comprehend another’s grief? Is happiness a chimera? Does wealth, sex, artistic success bring joy? We know the answers, but the questions still have to be asked. A co-commission and co-production between seven European opera houses, Picture a day… was first seen at the Aix-en-Provence festival in July, where the composer was also the conductor.
For the UK premiere at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury theatre, Benjamin has passed his baton to Corinna Niemeyer (praised for her conducting of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia there last year). Two members of the five-strong vocal cast are new. In the pit, players from the orchestra of the Royal Opera House have added the work, with style and precision, to their repertoire (the Mahler Chamber Orchestra performed the premiere). Few operas are ushered into the world with such confidence, and the assurance of a fully fledged life ahead. Benjamin and Crimp have been fortunate: their most successful work, Written on Skin (also premiered at Aix, in 2012), has already had multiple international stagings, with more scheduled. Picture a day like this is a more intimate endeavour, closer to the fairytale world of their first work, Into the Little Hill (2006).
