Common People
Originally published on http://www.culturewars.org.uk/
Jacko's Hour, Bridewell Theatre, London
When opera tries to appeal to younger and trendier audiences it’s often either a case of sexing up the old classics or eschewing operatic traditions and pulling out the jazz hands. Opera Engine – the result of a ten-year long collaboration between composer Elfyn Jones and lyricist Tim Sattherthwaite, is doing something a little different. Jacko’s Hour, a newly composed chamber opera, reworks the classic Western High Noon by transferring the story to a fairground shootin’ range stall and the re-awakening of conflict between two families as Geordie Pierce, the man Jacko Rollins put away for killing his brother, returns for vengeance just as his nephew gets engaged to Jacko’s daughter.
With our leading lady, Annabel Mountford, as a preggers teen sporting a range of plush velour joggers, bling earrings and latest mobile phone, and the whole cast trying - on a sliding scale of success – their ‘showperson’ accents (mostly Irish?), the company blurb proclaims ‘New Opera starts here!’. But perhaps this is really a denial of abstraction of the Birtwistle shool of contemporary opera and a return to one of the core elements of earlier operatic tradition – a valorisation and exoticisation of the ‘common people’? Family tensions and the way circumstances put a limit on love and ambition were standard themes for 17th-18th century opera (and indeed EastEnders) and it wasn’t until Wagner carved out its new status as Total Art that the everyday was renounced from the opera stage.
And conductor and composer Elfyn Jones is keen to embrace popular musics through his orchestration - an economical and versatile instrumental ensemble of drums, double bass and piano allows the work to flit between various styles from Kurt Weill-esque militaristic cabaret through oscillating impressionistic piano chords and cool jazz, and demands a similar flexibility from the singers. The pared-down simple scoring of Jacko’s Hour is not simply a matter of pastiche – a disjuncture of distinct styles – but a reminder that opera has always been a hybrid tradition brought alive in local contexts.
Henry Deacon, who appears both as a chorus showman and surreal echo of Gary Cooper’s Sheriff Kane as Grim Reaper, is particular adept at this seamless style-switching – his creamy low tones deliver the moral superiority of Sarastro, whilst his acapella Sheriff solo offers a rich negro spiritual. The company as a whole is a real showcase of future opera talent and no doubt some of these fine singers will shortly be caking on the make-up, headdresses and harnesses and diva attitude of bloated national opera companies. As popularising projects for opera go, Jacko’s Hour is a testament to the potential simplicity and economy (both financially and metaphorically) of chamber opera. Opera doesn’t need to go grand to be poignant – melodramatic spectacle can rarely compete with the intimate and everyday storytelling of a well-crafted chamber opera such as this.
