English National Opera has made a bold move with its first new opera staged in its northern base, selecting Du Yun’s Pulitzer-winning Angel’s Bone. The work tackles human trafficking head-on in an allegorical tale of two angels who fall into the clutches of a dysfunctional couple, who quickly decide to mutilate and exploit them.
Kip Williams, known for his innovative staging of The Picture of Dorian Gray, directs this in-the-round production, with action live-projected onto four enormous screens. The result can be disorientating, but Du Yun’s genre-bending score, performed by a tireless ensemble of 10 conducted by Baldur Brönnimann, is compelling and kaleidoscopic.
The set, designed by Marg Horwell, features slowly rotating walls that imprison the angels, while costumes grow increasingly garish as the couple embrace celebrity. Allison Cook is relentless as Mrs X E, her supple mezzo embracing melismatic vocal lines as she metamorphoses into a Trumpian reality star. Rodney Earl Clarke offers vital support as her browbeaten husband, with Matthew McKinney and Mariam Wallentin heartbreaking as the angels.
However, the endlessly rotating walls form an impenetrable barrier that can obscure the screens, making the production disorienting and emotionally distancing for some audience members. The production transfers to London later this year, rejigged for the Coliseum’s proscenium stage, where sightline issues should be resolved.
