Classical Music

‘People would go away saying, “Holy shit, what was that?”’ says John Hess, happily. He’s talking of the premiere in Toronto of an opera opening next week at Covent Garden – not a venue given to such wholehearted reactions. But then ‘The Midnight Court’ is showing at the Linbury, the studio theatre that’s acquiring an identity, almost despite the disdainful presence of big brother upstairs. There it’s the Royal Opera. Downstairs it’s Queen of Puddings. Feature continues

Queen of what? The artistic directors of Canada’s cutting-edge music theatre explain how the company got its name. John Hess compiled a list garnered from heavyweight reading, ‘looking for a name that would capture people’s imagination without being precious… ’At the bottom he wrote ‘Queen of Puddings. It’s Dáirine’s favourite dessert. She’s fiercely Irish but determined not to lose the queen of puddings.’ ‘One of the best things the English brought,’ agrees Dáirine Ní Mheadhra. ‘I went down the list and said that’s it!’

Hess admits he was initially ‘slightly embarrassed’ by the title. ‘One funding body said we love your application but strongly encourage you to change your name.’ But the fledgling company’s work immediately established a darkly gleaming aesthetic. ‘Very physical,’ says Hess. ‘Fantastical,’ she agrees. ‘Magic realism in a way,’ he concludes.

The company’s based in Toronto but we meet in Montreal, home of Ana Sokolovic. She’s composed the score for ‘The Midnight Court’. A Serb married to a French- Canadian, she was sent the libretto, based on an eighteenth-century satirical poem originally in Gaelic, ‘and didn’t understand a word,’ she laughs. By eerie coincidence, the first French translation had just appeared. ‘So I read it in French and fell in love with it.’

Brian Merriman’s rollicking poem ‘The Midnight Court’, written in 1780, emerges as a very modern-sounding plea for women’s fulfilment. ‘There aren’t enough men for the women, it’s historically true,’ explains John. ‘These beautiful priests, well-fed, healthy, robust, should be let loose…’ In the new libretto this is sidelined in favour of a broader message: ‘The overall theme is women’s right to love and sex, with beautiful young women going to waste…’ The midnight court is a fairy tribunal where the men are tried and sentenced to whipping. ‘Nine months after the Toronto premiere, half the people in the company had babies,’ says Dáirine. ‘If you’re worried about declining birth-rates…’ adds John speculatively.

It’s the composer’s first opera, though her theatre credentials include acting and directing. Is eighteenth-century Irish Catholic satire hard for a Montreal-based Belgrade girl to grasp? She laughs, citing the universal human characteristics observed in the original. The libretto is based on Frank O’Connor’s modern English version (banned by the post-British Irish Catholic church) by Paul Bentley, who adapted ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ for Poul Ruders. Artistic directors, librettist and composer work together to illustrate Ana’s creed: ‘Opera’s like a marriage – it’s polygamy.’ In her case it’s an extra mixed marriage: musical influences include Stravinsky, the Russian music that ‘Transforms stereotypes into the universal’, , Ligeti, Balkan folk and of course Bartók. Kent Nagano’s cvommissioned a big orchestral piece from her for the Montreal Symphony.

It’s certainly a meeting of minds as regards style. Queen of Puddings is deliberately small-scale, for touring, and breaks down walls real and imagined, often leaving audiences uncertain what’s deliberate and what spontaneous. As John Hess recalls, ‘In [Peter Maxwell Davies’] “Eight Songs for a Mad King”, the singer went out into the Toronto street in combinations and bare feet. The accordion-player, a strong guy, caught him and brought him back…’ The instrumentalists are brought into the shows ‘out of their black clothes and away from the music stands,’ says Dáirine. ‘We want a Cirque du Soleil for singers… A fantastic circus of voice.’ In ‘The Midnight Court’, a wedding scene is ‘distilled to the essence’ and two percussionists do a drumming duo centre-stage. In previous shows, the orchestra’s joined in a final a cappella chorus. Spare sets for touring are offset by evocative lighting and costumes. Of the fairy queen, glimpsed as the huge shoe of a giantess, John says, ‘It would be perfect in a Punch & Judy show.’ ‘Exuberant’s the word,’ agrees Dáirine.