Vocalists strike, blow, and sing their way through a vivid retelling of Creation in Aníbal Vidal’s ‘Theatre of Origins’, premiered at Spitalfields Festival.
Inspired by Geoffrey Hill’s poem Genesis, composer Anibal Vidal’s Theatre of Origins (Part I) draws on a libretto by Thomas Lowen, documenting the Creation in a technicolour piece of storytelling that is both inventive and resourceful, making all manner of demands on its performers, the Carice Singers.
Vidal’s sonic depiction is dark, atmospheric, and deliciously theatrical, painting the emergence of existence as something dominated by nightmarish figures. Even if you’re not a dedicated follower of religion or contemporary classical music, the demands on performers – the score demanding all manner of unusual objects called upon to generate sound – makes this a marvel to watch and listen to. Vidal has taken the sometime earnestness of vocal groups and made them sing (and play and blow and strike) for their supper. The Carice Singers work hard and deliver in spades.
The joy Vidal explores in scoring sound, his innate skill in storytelling – is not only evident but infectious. He’s inventive proud badge-wearing advocate for new, appealing contemporary music, mixing harmony and sound effects to create a live sound world that enriches and enlivens. In a contemporary classical music world that feels increasingly homogenised, it’s difficult to pinpoint which platform, festival, or broadcaster would showcase him, but all of the right thinking ones should. There is visual spectacle as well as aural delight that makes his work Theatre of Origins a must-see in particular, and him a must-follow. It’s reassuring to know there is someone around who is bucking convention.
The only (presently) frustrating thing about Vidal is that there’s hardly anything available online that adequately illustrates the composer’s inventiveness. That needs to change.
