What does one perform with Vaughan Williams’s seldom heard one act tragedy
about a mother who has lost her last surviving son somewhere off the west coast
of Ireland? Drawn from J.M. Synge’s doom-laden play set on the Aran Islands
and premiered by students at the Royal College of Music in 1937, Riders to the
Sea has occasionally been partnered by Holst’s Savitra and even more
infrequently with rarities such as Darius Milhaud’s Le Pauvre Matelot and
Lennox Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement. At its English National Opera
premiere in 2008 ‘Riders’ was prefaced by Sibelius’s Luonnotar, a tone poem
for soprano and orchestra derived from Finnish mythology relating to the
world’s beginning by an air spirit trapped in the sea. Whether this idea prompted
Michael Betteridge for his specially commissioned prologue is unknown, but
The Last Bit of the Moon (in collaboration with Antosh Wocjik and a group of
Solent writers) is an inspired companion piece to a new, shrink-wrapped version
of the Vaughan Williams to create a double bill lasting just over an hour.
Both works were presented in Studio 2 at the Mast, Southampton. It’s an
intimate space (with seating for around 120 people) and ideal for the handful of
young professionals attached to OperaUpClose – an enterprising national
touring company. Most obvious in the staging of these operatic miniatures is the
immediacy of the storytelling, and with absolutely nothing lost in the chamber
scoring of ‘Riders’ reduced here to accordion (Ilona Suoamalainen), oboe/cor
anglais (Bryony Middleton) and clarinet/ bass clarinet (Emily Wilson). If
anything, the plangent sonorities seem tailor-made for the text and could
provide ‘Riders’ with many more performance opportunities.
Similarly scored and no less haunting is its shadowy prequel, The Last Bit of the
Moon, which reshapes Synge’s tale as a series of painful memories for Bartley
(a minor figure in ‘Riders’, and here much expanded) as he laments the death
his brother Michael, drowned at sea. The Moon of the title (superbly sung by
countertenor Tom Lilburn) offers him a chance to come to terms with his loss
and make sense of his grief. Providing solace and a warning are words,
obligingly displayed as surtitles, sung by a pre-recorded community chorus,
drawn variously from Hull, Bournemouth and Southampton, who periodically
chant “The tide provides, the tide takes”, its fatalistic message implicit. On
opening night Neil Balfour, as Bartley, lost his voice, but his speech-inflected
lines were heard via a recording with him lip-synching his light baritone – a feat
of concentration only compromised by some expressionless delivery. Piquant
harmonies from the three instrumentalists wafted through a gauze curtain, while
video projections added poignant childhood recollections, the whole
sympathetically overseen by Flora McIntosh in her directorial debut.
Both operas explore the belief that traumatic memory can be reconciled.
Nowhere is this more intensely felt than in the cathartic final monologue of
Riders to the Sea where the grieving Maurya (Lauren Young in lead photo) achieves a sort of
fierce dignity following the death of her last remaining son, a scene even more
harrowing for her determined smile. And in music of rapt, transcendental beauty
Vaughan Williams suggests a stoic inner peace can be attained. Young
overcomes the role’s emotional challenges to bring all the necessary pathos
culminating in her acceptance that “No man at all can be living for ever, and we
must be satisfied”. Susie Buckle and Julia Mariko (Maura’s daughters Nora and
Cathleen) are well drawn and sing their quasi-recitative-like phrases with clear,
ardent voices, while also hiding their grief from a mother who refuses to give
her blessing when the resolute Bartley insists on taking horses across to Galway
Fair and consequently to his grave.
Just as the score is a masterpiece of compression, so too is the basic set: a
cramped kitchen in an impoverished fisherman’s cottage, with just a few props
to draw the eye. Keeping alive the memory of her lost sons are a child’s bicycle
and a photo album Maurya carries around with her obsessively. This is all that’s
needed to convey the sense of quiet resolve of a family’s losing battle with the
sea. And in these intense portrayals all have excelled in extracting the maximum
emotional impact from the minimum of means. OperaUpClose has reached new
heights of artistic expression.
David Truslove
Music: The Last Bit of the Moon by Michael Betteridge with a text compiled by
ArtfulScribe’s Community Sirens Collective led by Antosh Wojcik. Riders to the Sea by Ralph Vaughan Williams setting words by J.M Synge
Cast and Production staff:
Bartley – Neil Balfour; Maurya – Lauren Young; Nora – Susie Buckle; Cathleen
– Julia Mariko, Moon – Tom Lilburn; Accordion – Ilona Suoamalainen;
Oboe/cor anglais – Bryony Middleton; Clarinet / Bass Clarinet– Emily Wilson;
Male voices – The Sunday Boys, Hull Freedom Chorus, Bournemouth Male
Voice Choir; Children’s voices – St Monica’s Primary, St Partick’s Catholic
School & Weston Shore Primary
Artistic Director – Flora McIntosh; Design/Lighting/Projection – Cheng Keng;
Musical Supervisor – Robin Wallington; Costume Designer and Supervisor –
Robin Simon.
Studio 2, The Mast, Southampton, 30 January 2025
Photos: © Rich Southgate