George Benjamin
Picture a day like this (2021-23)

Woman – Marianne Crebassa (mezzo-soprano)
Zabelle – Anna Prohaska (soprano)
Artisan/Collector – John Brancy (baritone)
First Lover/Composer – Beate Mordal (soprano)
Second Lover/Composer’s Assistant – Cameron Shahbazi (countertenor)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Sir George Benjamin

Nimbus NI8116 [60’09’’] English libretto included

Producer & Engineer Etienne Pipard
Live performance, 5 July 2023 at Theâtre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Nimbus continues its long association with the music of George Benjamin by releasing his most recent opera, as recorded during its initial production at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and here featuring an impressive line-up of musicians under the direction of the composer.

What’s the music like?

Surprising as was the emergence of Benjamin as an opera composer, he has consolidated his standing accordingly – the ‘lyric tale’ Into the Little Hill (NI5964) duly followed by the full-length Written on Skin (NI5885) then Lessons in Love and Violence (NI5976). In spite of its greater length, Picture a day like this marks his return to the intimacy and understatement of that first venture in terms of its reduced cast and chamber forces – for all that the underlying ‘theme’ seems nothing if not significant in its consideration of life above and beyond death.

Unfolding across seven scenes, the narrative relates a Woman’s search for a ‘happy person’ to redeem the death of her child – during which she encounters a pair of Lovers, a retired Artisan and a renowned Composer; their happiness and contentment in each case pure self-deception. After a despairing monologue, she meets a Collector whose attempted empathy leads her to a garden where the arcadian aspect proves as illusory as the contentment of Zabelle: one whose ostensibly tragic story still enables her to glimpse a future beyond what she has experienced.

Musically this work finds Benjamin at his most subtle and often rarified though never merely inscrutable. Understandably eschewing those respectively sustained expressive build-ups then jarring histrionics of his previous two stage-works, the present opera focusses on incremental changes of emphasis both vocally and instrumentally to maintain a fluid if always perceptible momentum. Allied to this the texture has a poise and finesse, notable even by the standards of this composer, as largely mitigates any sense of the drama played out at an emotional remove.

It could hardly be bettered in terms of performance. Marianne Crebassa brings eloquence and no little fervour to the Woman, while Anna Prohaska evokes Zabelle with mounting gravitas. The other singers are nothing if not attuned to their doubling of roles – notably John Brancy’s fractured Artisan, Beate Mordal’s unfulfilled Composer and Cameron Shahbazi’s narcissistic Lover. Long an able exponent of his own music, Benjamin secures playing of responsiveness from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as he steers this work forward with audible inevitability.

Does it all work?

Yes, providing one accepts that Benjamin’s idiom is inward if not necessarily inward-looking and elusive without its being inaccessible. The ethos of this opera is likely to be experienced at a remove from the drama it articulates, with the listener becoming absorbed in the onstage action but never coerced into an intended response. That what one takes from listening to it is no more permanent than it is predetermined is itself testimony to the conviction of Benjamin’s and librettist Martin Crimp’s fashioning a parable simultaneously of its own yet outside time.

Is it recommended?

Indeed, given the fascination of its subject, the nature of its treatment and the assurance of its realization. Hopefully a DVD presentation of this or the subsequent Royal Opera production will be forthcoming. Even if or when it appears, this release can be strongly recommended.

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Buy / Further information

For purchase options and more information on this release, visit the Nimbus website.

Published post no.2,303 – Tuesday 17 September 2024