Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs was never meant to be staged. To its composer, writing in 1976, it was a tribute to the bond between mother and child. Sung at English National Opera in the original Polish – apparently out of respect for the second movement’s text, found on the wall of a Gestapo prison cell in Zakopane – it is three scenes in which a woman either mourns for her son or, in the prison text, addresses her mother as her own death approaches.
Yet this is the symphony’s second stage version in London within months; last autumn, the choreographer Crystal Pite’s ballet to it, Light of Passage, wowed the Royal Opera House. Now, for ENO the director and designer Isabella Bywater heads a creative team – video designer Roberto Vitalini, lighting designer Jon Driscoll and movement director Dan O’Neil – that has devised an absorbing and emotionally wrenching visualisation, more installation than narrative, all of it intensely integrated with the music. In that sense, it hits the sweet spot already occupied by ENO’s hugely popular productions by Phelim McDermott of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten and Satyagraha. If you liked those, you’ll probably love this.
The first movement, a great arc from and to the grave, presents images of rain like endless tears, a sea on which our soprano feels shipwrecked, and a sense of being in freefall – anyone who has experienced such mourning might recognise that state of mind. In the finale, ghostly figures stalk a forest of ropes while the singer searches for her son. And an ecstatic transfiguration takes place, a Blake-inspired vision realised with breathtaking beauty.
The ENO Orchestra shines bright, with the American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya, making her ENO debut, drawing out a wonderful, opulent warmth. The soprano Nicole Chevalier’s voice soars heroically across those sizeable forces from many heights. She even has to tip herself out of a chair into mid-air. Thank heavens all flying devices functioned, even if far from invisibly.
In 1992, this symphony was a surprise hit in the classical record charts; perhaps it spoke to those depressing, deprived times. Thirty years on, it’s back, just as ENO’s future is being wantonly shredded. The company’s outgoing chief executive, Stuart Murphy, began the evening with a speech, pointing out to government and Arts Council England representatives – some of whom were there – that history is watching them.
ENO used to be the People’s Opera and could be again, if properly supported. Hands off it, vandals.
