Review: Testament at Grimeborn, Arcola Theatre

Green Opera is a wonderfully vibrant opera group that always dares and innovates. It opens the magnificent Grimeborn summer-long opera festival at the Arcola and once again magnificent singing is on display here in imaginative settings. But does it all hang together?

Testament is a bringing together of several pieces; excerpts that range from Monteverdi, through to contemporary American composer Libby Larsen, with stops on the way at Weelkes and Dowland, culminating in Janáček. As you can see, it covers a very wide range of styles and we are treated to some exquisite singing by the five singers, Brenton Spiteri, Katherine McIndoe, Natalka Pasicznyk, Shafali Jalota and Emily Hodkinson.

Designer Kit Hinchcliffe has imaginatively created a very simple set of two white, raised, rectangular platforms separated by artificial earth with a striking white staircase at the back leading to the upper platform. I have to commend the lighting designer, Cheng Keng, who creates spaces and contrasts, pinpoints and shafts of light all through the evening.

Spiteri sings the narrator for Monteverdi’s Tancredi and Clorinda, specifically here recounting their duel in battle. Movement is very stylised; not dramatic enough, one could argue. However, the actual theatre is evoked by Spiteri’s energised interpretation – clean attack, shades of colour and impeccable diction create the picture of these lovers tragically fighting to the death, interspersed with occasional lines for the protagonists. Spiteri is wonderful here, clear, centred notes, ringing out.

A delightful a capella madrigal for three voices called The Nightingale by Thomas Weelkes follows, moving straight into the piece by Libby Larsen from 2000, which sets the final letters written by five of Henry VIII’s wives. This is a tour de force for any soprano and my word does McIndoe step up to the plate! Her voice is resplendent and sumptuous across the whole range, but what marks her out is her utter commitment to the character she is playing, in the moment – all five of them! Raineri is superb on piano, always sensitive to McIndoe’s different emotional journeys. The music itself cleverly captures a modern tonal idiom using references to period melodies in a very appealing way.

The last major piece of this 80 minute evening is given over to an excerpt from Janáček’s Diary of One who Disappeared. Jan (Spiteri) is haunted by a beautiful girl Zefka (McIndoe); they finally meet and embrace one night – a touching moment of great beauty – but come the morning she has gone. “No-one escapes their fate” is the refrain, but Jan has a revelation. His fate is in fact to leave his village behind him and look for a better life. I cannot praise Spiteri highly enough. His clear clarion tenor effortlessly interprets Janáček’s difficult vocal part with pinpoint precision – and in Czech. He gives us virility, tenderness, frustration and revelation. It has to be said that Raineri on piano also comes into his own, and the demands of the score are dispatched with ease. Bravo all round!

But does it all hang together? I admit I am always wary when I have to resort to the director’s (Tobias Millard) notes for help. I got “Testament” as meaning “bearing witness” in that there was a recounting of a personal story or event, but “the juxtaposition of darkness and light played out against earth’s nature”? I didn’t really get that. Alas it didn’t quite add up in my book.

Despite no real convincing common thread to join up its various parts, this is nevertheless a sumptuous feast of music, superbly sung and played, with standout contributions from Spiteri and McIndoe. It’s a delight to simply wallow in the fabulous voices!

Directed by: Tobias Millard
Musical Director: Alex Raineri
Lighting by: Cheng Keng
Set/Costumes by: Kit Hinchcliffe

Testament runs until Saturday 19 July as part of Grimeborn at the Arcola Theatre