‘A timeless story of parental hurt executed to youngsters”, is composer Michael Zev Gordon’s description of the parable of Daedalus and Icarus. His Icarus opera has been a very long time within the making; in 2011 he wrote a quick theatre piece based mostly on the legend, however Elevating Icarus, staged by Barber Opera, is the true factor, a powerful full-length chamber opera, to a libretto by Stephen Plaice.
It tells the story of the smith Daedalus and his finally tragic ambitions for his son in three succinct acts: from Icarus’s failure to be the sort of expert craftsman his father desires; by Daedalus’s indebtedness to Minos, the ruthless, impotent king of Crete, whose spouse, Pasiphaë, is infatuated with a bull by whom she has a toddler; Daedalus’s constructing of the labyrinth to include that monstrous offspring, the minotaur; the daddy and son’s escape from it on the wings that Daedalus makes for them; and Icarus’s deadly, hubristic flight.
Plaice’s unselfconsciously rhymed textual content presents the narrative very clearly, if often only a bit too wordily, however Gordon’s setting of it, principally in sleek arioso phrases, ensures that the sense come throughout simply. Solely the vocal strains for Pasiphaë, louche and languorous with a bluesy tinge, are particularly characterful, however every of the leads is crisply outlined nonetheless. The ending, when 4 of the characters come collectively as a Greek refrain to mirror on Icarus’s fall, is fantastically dealt with. Underpinning the singers there's a quirky, reasonably astringent eight-piece ensemble (Birmingham Up to date Music Group), which incorporates an accordion and a trombone, and gives pulsing, stressed accompaniments, filled with ear-catching element. Typically it erupts in tangled, menacing climaxes.
The fashionable-dress staging by Orpha Phelan is efficient sufficient, if often reasonably fussy and twee, however the performances – led by James Cleverton because the bullying Daedalus and Margo Arsane because the pliant Icarus, with Andrew Slater as Minos, Galina Averina as Pasiphaë, Lucy Schaufer as Polycaste and William Morgan as her son Talus – are all robust. And Natalie Murray Beale’s conducting ensures that the drama, very effectively paced by Gordon and Plaice, packs a punch.
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