This is the only opera (and composer) that I actually discovered through that Guardian list. According to wikipedia, in his lifetime Tippett "was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as one of the leading British composers of the twentieth century." I think it's fair to say that his star has fallen in recent times. I was initially concerned that my efforts to see the entire list would be stymied by this one not being available anywhere, but, mirabile dictu, there's a film version from 1985 that we can watch. I feel like we have here an excellent opportunity to potentially find a hidden gem, so let's see.
It centers on the Trojan War. As you might have guessed. You'll probably be familiar with the basic story beats, probably excepting the stuff about Paris' early life, which apparently DOES come from actual primary sources but which isn't Homeric and which I don't think people usually learn about: when he was a baby, an oracle predicted that he would result in his father's death, and so after some agonizing, he's to be left in the wilderness to die, but is instead raised by a shepherd until he reappears and Priam decides, oh, fuck it, I'm going to embrace him as my son regardless of prophesy. After that, we're in familiar territory: Paris gives the golden apple to Aphrodite and takes Helen away from Meneleus, precipitating the war: Hector kills Patroclus, Achilles kills Hector, Paris kills Achilles, you know the drill. Everyone's killed by someone!
The libretto is by Tippett himself. It's sometimes a bit messy, but also very striking. The opera centers around the idea of fate and how individual choices, whether they're meant or not, lock people into situations that they can see but not avoid. Honestly, I was a bit skeptical that I could find yet another narrative about the Trojan War dramatically compelling--it feels very played out to me--but this basically does it. It has that certain sort of stony grandeur that you associated with Greek epic. I was impressed more than not.
The music is sort of a mixture of larger-scale pieces and smaller stuff with just a piano or whatnot. It's probably cued to individual characters, but there is no way to know. I liked it, and there are a few somewhat spine-tingling bits like a trio between Hecuba, Andromache, and Helen, but it rarely blew me away.
This production is a made-for-TV thing from the eighties, shot on videotape I think, so the quality isn't all you might hope for. I mean, it's fine, these things don't bother me so much, but definitely not HD quality, and with that good ol' blocky aspect ratio that we all remember from old TV shows. The production is a okay, if a bit drab in places. It seems to be sort of a mixture between the old and the new. A surprising number of shirtless dudes, if that's your thing. A few places where I thought, huh, that seems like a bit much, as when Patroclus, Paris, and Priam are smearing themselves with Patroclus' blood. Rodney Macann is very striking in the title role, a sort of gaunt, rangy figure with a haunted look about him. Not that it matters, one hundred percent in favor of color-blind casting, etc, but IS notable that Howard Haskin as Paris is the ONLY non-white person in the cast. Stands out, for sure, although I suppose you could argue that in this telling of the story, that works, since his character's sort of an outsider. Wevs.
Would I consider this a sufficiently notable work to include on my list of fifty operas? Dunno about that, but at the same time, I'm kinda glad that SOMEONE did, so that I would be able to discovered and see it.
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