Green Angel

On Saturday night, I attended the semi-staged, first third of a new opera in production, called Green Angel. This opera was based on the 2003 novella of the same title by Alice Hoffman, with libretto adapted by Adam Strickson and music by Lauren Redhead.

The adaptation and staging was based on ideas of Noh theatre and so was very static and stylised. Dramatically, rather than rely on narrative, the piece seems to concentrate more on the racking up of the emotional intensity. Musically, there seemed to be an emphasis on noise and percussion that seemed to link it with Noh and Kabuki theatre quite well.

Performances were generally quite good, especially as the cast and ensemble had only had 2 - 3 days to learn and rehearse a challenging score. Aniko Toth (soprano) played/sang the lead role as Ash very well indeed, managing to maintain a high degree of intensity in her performance throughout the piece.

My only disappointment was that the performance was incomplete, as I found myself quite engrossed in the whole production and it would have been great to see it play out to the end. The good news is that the whole production will be performed at The Stage@Leeds next year.