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Review: For You: Berkeley ****
Opera today is very much in a state of flux with different factions dragging it in various directions.
For You, an operatic collaboration between composer Michael Berkeley and novelist Ian McEwan, premired last autumn in London, comes in direct succession from Mozart through Berg and Britten.
Emotionally and psychologically vast and yet a chamber piece written with seemingly effortless structural discipline. Within its scenario – which owes much to Don Giovanni – Berkeley and McEwan have created an examination of hubris, self-delusion, self-justification and guilt driving inexorably to confusion and destruction.
Text and music speak equally layer upon layer of black irony and blacker humour, and, because the Giovanni figure is a monstrous celebrity composer/conductor, Berkeley and McEwan take every opportunity to tease operatic conventions – reference to Strauss's Capriccio for example and the heroine's unconscionable Italianate death scene.
At the heart of the opera is the orchestra – bubbling and fizzing along, occasionally spitting flashes of wit or building intense climaxes – while on stage the vocal sextet is restored to its proper place at the heart of opera.
Lyrical in the style of Berg and unrelentingly intense in the style of Britten, Berkeley has a dextrous way with theatre music.
The piece was written for Music Theatre Wales who perform it impeccably in every degree, the powerful and faultless company of six singers and a 14-piece orchestral ensemble being deftly steered by conductor Michael Rafferty.
Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfeld
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