Between Worlds, ENO

The relationship between many worlds is explored in Tansy Davies’ much-anticipated debut opera, around a theme that’s tragically only too familiar: terrorism. Set at the top of one of the Twin Towers during the attack, it’s not only life and death whose connection is interrogated, but heaven and earth, along with the grittier issues of the gulf between the  jihadists in the plane and the communities of the World Trade Centre. Though this is Davies’ first opera, she has won numerous awards since first breaking through as winner of the 1996 BBC Young Composers' Competition. Her compositions are firmly within the tradition of the classical avant garde, but she also has a background in popular music, and we can expect her soundscape to be informed, to a degree, by the earthier, more urban sounds of experimental rock.
Opera experience of the most impeccable pedigree will be on hand in the form of director Deborah Warner, one of the most distinguished theatre and opera directors alive today, who has directed the monumental pieces of the repertoire, including Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne, but is particularly well known for her commitment to experimental performance in both opera and theatre, including a staging of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land and Shakespeare’s Richard II with Fiona Shaw as Richard.
Musically, it promises to be excellent. The cast of contemporary music specialists includes counter-tenor Andrew Watts, a highly distinguished performer with an impeccable reputation across Europe, where contemporary opera is more popular. He’s “a household name in Vienna, Paris, Salzburg, Graz, Geneva, Venice, Hamburg, Porto, Lucerne, Berlin, Munich and Mannheim” according to Opera Britannia.
Contemporary opera has a taste for controversy, having already tackled terrorism with John Adams’ hugely controversial The Death of Klinghoffer, about the Palestinian hijacking of a passenger liner in 1985. Taking on 9/11 could of course, be infinitely more inflammatory. Take a seat and prepare for an evening as thoughtful as it is intense.