Lessons in Love and Violence

by George Benjamin, libretto by Martin Crimp

seen at Covent Garden on 18 May 2018

This newly commissioned opera is conducted by the composer and features Stéphane Degout as the King, Gyula Orendt as Gaveston nd the Stranger, Barbara Hannigan as Isabel, Peter Hoare as Mortimer, Samuel Boden as the Boy and Ocean Barrington-Cook as the Girl. It is directed by Katie Mitchell and designed by Vicki Mortimer. It is a meditation on the hapless reign of King Edward II (1307 to 1327) though it is played in modern dress.

The opera comprises seven scenes. In the first part (four scenes), the King banishes his military adviser Mortimer after the latter criticises the King's improvident relations with Gaveston. Though historically the scandal was that the two men might have been lovers, here Mortimer disparages all manifestations of love as being too threatening to the stability of political life. Next, Mortimer forces the Queen to be confronted with the misery of the kingdom, after which she agrees to his plan to murder Gaveston. Gaveston is seized at a private entertainment during which the King has asked him to foretell his future by reading his palm. Once he has learned of Gaveston's death, the King repudiates his Queen.

In the second part (three scenes) Mortimer and Queen Isabel have set up house together and Mortimer instructs the Boy, soon to be the Young King, in realpolitik, by forcing him to witness and approve of the strangulation of a madman who is claiming to be the rightful king; the Boy's pleas for mercy (due to extenuating circumstances) are brutally ignored. Mortimer then visits the imprisoned King and forces him to abdicate in favour of his son, after which the King encounters death in the form of a stranger with an uncanny likeness to Gaveston. Finally the Young King breaks free from his mother's and Mortimer's control, but the lesson he has learned is of violence rather than of love.

The point of the opera is not to construct a historical tragedy, but rather to reveal the contrasting paths of love and violence as the means of negotiating human relationships. The King is completely out of touch with political reality, being more interested in aesthetics, and so his political judgements and actions prove disastrous both forthe kingdom and for himself (and for Gaveston, too, of course). In the meantime, Isabel, at first uninterested in politics, is forced by Mortimer to confront reality, and then she becomes fascinated by him and she colludes in the deposition of her husband. The scene in which the two lovers coerce the younger Edward into approving the execution of the mad pretender is particularly grim, but all in all the triumph of political pragmatism and its concomitant violence makes for a pessimistic view of the world.

The opera is, despite this darkness, is very compelling. The personal relationships are important - the breakdown of sympathy between the King and the Queen being particularly important - and the differing philosophies of life are embodied in real people, not just ciphers. The cast are excellent, singing clearly and negotiating the melodic lines with great confidence. Interestingly, the growing sense of dysfunction and dread is intensified by the almost constant presence of the Girl, a daughter of the King and Queen (in fact they had two, so it is not clear which she is). This is a completely silent part, but a very important one.

The set is intriguing. Once again Vicki Mortimer, a long-time collaborator with Katie Mitchell, has designed a visual correlative to the action and music which is both starkly simple and yet quite fascinating. The first scene shows us a room which contains both a large bed to one side and an enormous fish-tank placed along a wall at the back. In the next scene, the fish-tank is on the wall to the right, and the bed has moved 90 degrees as well. The process is repeated for the third scene, which means that the tank is not visible since it is now part of the 'fourth wall' through which we are viewing the action. By the time it reappears in the fourth scene, now at the left, it is completely empty, a silent symbol of the encroaching catastrophe in the King's life as much as of the state of the kingdom itself. In the second part, this room is 'rotated' again three more times.

The 'team' of Benjamin, Crimp, Mitchell and Mortimer have once again created an arresting and wonderful new opera, and it is extremely gratifying that Covent Garden was almost full of people eager to see it.