The Wanton Sublime / The Medium

As part of Grimeborn Opera Festival, Inside Intelligence presents a double-bill of contrasting short operas linked by a pair of compelling performances from American mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn.

First up is ‘The Medium’ (1981), a 40-minute tour de force for solo voice by Peter Maxwell Davies. Setting the composer’s own libretto, the monodrama calls for increasing levels of intensity as a fortune-telling clairvoyant comically reads palms before setting off on a literally shocking confessional that ends with convulsive therapy.

For such singular dynamics, Chinn – in full-length white lace dress – completely holds the stage in this admittedly overlong piece.Perhaps her consistently smooth vocal delivery, while displaying great articulation and intonation, might benefit by a little more abrasiveness.

But it was for the European premiere of another British composer that the audience filled this intimate subterranean venue – a studio theatre much too small for this musically expansive and vocally intricate work. Tarik O’Regan’s ‘The Wanton Sublime’ is half as long as the opener, and while also featuring Chinn as a solo singer, boasts the nine-piece Orpheus Sinfonia under Andrew Griffiths: an ensemble of strings (including both electric and acoustic guitars), flute and percussion. The score begins in Zappa-esque jazz-funk mode before starting to brood in O’Regan’s trademark shimmering, suspended bass chords from strings and gong. The libretto by Anna Rabinowitz (from New York, where O’Regan spends half his time) is a feminist treatise on the Annunciation of Mary. This virginal Mary is focused on her exhaustive efforts to find a man, making a quick onstage change from business suit to evening blue mini-dress. She then wrestles with her initially unwanted divine calling, before the music blossoms into a wonderful finale as Mary duets with a recording of herself over soaring, Scriabin-like chords of ecstatic apotheosis.