Carmen-Elektra has pulled off another unforgettable evening, filling a huge disused warehouse with lights, staging, some seriously LARGE speakers, an orchestra, a bar, a dance troupe, singers (one of them dressed as a toy lion with sunglasses) and last but not least, a big, enthusiastic and wonderfully attentive audience.
This was a double bill of Terrible Lips, an exciting new opera by Kate Whitley, and my video opera A Sudden Cartography of Song. Performances of both pieces were committed and intense, drawing on Cambridge’s very best singers and players, conducted by Will Gardner and Harry Ogg. See more pictures of both pieces.
It was fantastic to have Alistair Appleton (who wrote the words and made the video) come to speak his own lines. And Alistair and I were delighted with the energy, professionalism and sheer beauty of the singing, and of the production, both imaginative and sensitive, by Thom Andrewes. All in all it was an evening to remember. Carmen Elektra believe that if you rescue new music from ‘old-music’ venues and etiquette, and let it do its own thing, people will want to hear it. They’re certainly making a good case with productions like this. There is talk of a Rite of Spring in a Peckham car park next. Not to be missed.
Jeremy Thurlow - composer 