Between Worlds

by Tansy Davies, libretto Nick Drake

seen at the Barbican on 25 April 2015

This opera, co-commissioned by ENO and the Barbican, follows five imagined but representative figures in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11 2001. Directed by Deborah Warner and conducted by Gerry Cornelius, it features Andrew Watts as a Shaman, Eric Greene as a Janitor, Rhian Lois as a Younger Woman, Clare Presland as a Realtor (estate agent) William Morgan as a Younger Man, Phillip Rhodes as an Older Man and Susan Bickley as a Mother (of the Younger Man).

Both composer and librettist in the accompanying program refer to the events of 9/11 (as they are still so clumsily referred to) as 'unspeakable', and one senses the difficulty of approaching the subject with the appropriate degrees of tact and artistic conviction. By and large this production succeeds in overcoming the obstacles of glibness, sentimentality, voyeurism and presumption which could all too easily have bedevilled it.

The set is on three levels, but always stark. 

On the intermediate level, a Janitor is cleaning an office on one of the higher floors of the North Tower, and staying later than usual to set up the furniture for a meeting. He witnesses the glorious sunrise of the day, but is distracted by occasional whistlings from above, where a Shaman sits in some unaccountable space surveying all that will happen. 

At ground level, the ordinary events of a beautiful September day begin, as a woman leaves her lover, the realtor fails to say goodbye to her recalcitrant young son, a man leaves his wife fractiously agreeing to go to a doctor, but intending all along to go straight to work, and a young man finds himself in Manhattan for perhaps the first time. Members of the chorus ensemble sing the other parts of these various conversations; the ensemble also represents the normal buzz of commuters and later the appalled witnesses of the unfolding catastrophe. When the four characters reach the office space, their personalities are further revealed by their interactions with the Janitor; the Young Man suffers from vertigo and embarrassment and the Janitor encourages him to look out, not down. 

The North Tower was the first to be hit; this is deftly indicated by the disarray of the characters and the loosening of one of the rows of strip lights; clouds of smoke billow on the back projection obscuring the city below. Time appears to be slowed so that the sense of confusion and the  racing of individual thoughts can be explored. Once this initial period is passed, time seems to flow normally again and we are faced with the panic and uncertainty of frightened and trapped people.

As the true nature of the predicament becomes clearer, as the chances to communicate with the outside world sputter out, the situation becomes more tense, even though we the audience know the denouement. The phone conversations each of the four is able to have are increasingly poignant - the first series attempting to be upbeat, and the second vainly trying to grapple with doom. The Young Man leaves a voicemail for his Mother, including the advice from the Janitor not to switch on the TV. When she receives the message, she sings in all her doubt and perplexity of her great love for her son, then sits with her feet over the orchestra pit, a mute witness to the horror.

When the Shaman sings, it is in high counter-tenor swoops of sound to which the Janitor slowly becomes more attuned. During the course of the piece, the Janitor becomes more sure of his role, and by the end, it is inevitably that of the Ferryman, here in the most benign aspect that might be possible in the circumstances, leading the others to acceptance and farewell to the world. Once again, but far more forcefully, his advice is to look outwards, not downwards.

The final collapse of the towers is represented by cascading pieces of paper. In an almost dreamlike sequence, the sister of the Younger Man dances with him until she must release his body so it can fly upwards - a last single piece of paper flutters down from on high.

The music is subtle, sinewy, varying according to the moods and events being portrayed. There has been criticism that the lyrics were not always clearly enough sung (there are no sur-titles), but this did not seem to be problematic during this performance. Also it is quite plain that much of the choral singing is of phrases from the Latin Requiem, or else of deliberate confusion to represent the babble of voices in alarm or excitement. The principal singers ranged from good to excellent, Eric Greene and Susan Bickley being the clearest; Andrew Watts also fine but with a harder part to enunciate).

As a meditation on loss and resilience this was most affecting. As an artistic response to a recent a deeply troubling historical event, it was bold; though perhaps any such response, which must imagine human beings the situation in order to be artistic at all, cannot be entirely adequate to the task it has set itself. There was, however, quite fittingly a long pause between the last note and the beginning of applause.