Do you ever get the feeling you’re seeing something completely different to everyone else? Angel’s Bone, the modern opera by Du Yun and Royce Vavrek, has won a Pulitzer. So maybe I’m a contrarian, or just a philistine, but I simply could not get on board with director Kip Williams’ overwhelming, unnecessarily technified multimedia production at the London Coliseum.
A poignant allegory of human trafficking, Angel’s Bone depicts two angels falling to Earth in a suburban backyard. To homeowners Mr and Mrs X.E., the heavenly arrival seems a blessing: they’re going broke and their marriage is falling apart. Having decided they are divinely entitled to profit from these angels, the couple cruelly exploit them in the worst imaginable ways.
Angel’s Bone is a powerful story that doesn’t shy away from the horrors of modern slavery. The humans subject the angels to horrific violence, with Mrs X.E. painted as a status-chasing, manipulative Lady Macbeth figure. Unsurprisingly for an opera, the story is told best through the music. Yun’s score contains an intriguing blend of styles and offers soaring crescendoes that are raw and affecting.
It’s delivered in powerhouse performances, especially from Allison Cook as Mrs X.E. and Matthew McKinney as the Boy Angel. That said, the characters are somewhat one-note (perhaps subtlety is too much to ask in opera). The angels are given little characterisation beyond their role as victims, and Mrs X.E. doesn’t so much descend into evil as jump in headfirst.
But where Williams’ production really falls down, and this may divide audiences, is in choosing to turn the opera into a multimedia experience. The main set, the X.E.s’ house, rotates throughout the show, so performers are constantly ducking in and out of view. The action is continuously captured by three roving camera operators, whose live feeds are projected onto enormous screens at the front and back of the stage.
It’s undoubtedly an impressive logistical feat. But from a dramatic perspective, it’s completely overwhelming as an audience member. Your focus is constantly split between competing viewpoints and, utterly bizarrely for a theatre show, there are frequent moments when the on-stage action is obscured entirely by the ever-moving set.
The eye is naturally drawn to the vast screens, which makes the show almost more cinematic than theatrical. There’s no rulebook to theatre, and there’s a proud history of directors pushing the limits of form. But there’s a fine line between innovation and gimmick, and the overbearing presence of the filmed elements shows a sad lack of faith in the inherent dramatic power of the music and performances.
In a pre-show speech, Artistic Director Annilese Miskimmon proudly highlighted English National Opera’s access schemes, rightly noting that opera should be accessible to a wide audience. But seeing a show like Angel’s Bone, one wonders if the problem isn’t access but appeal. Williams’ bold production is a technical marvel, but it’s hard to imagine anyone but the greatest theatrophiles connecting to this story in its current form.
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