Classical and Jazz: Review - Two Boys at the London Coliseum
Published: 30 June, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
WELCOME to Internet: The Opera. New York composer Nico Muhly’s new opera Two Boys, premiered by English National Opera, inhabits the unsavoury world of internet impersonation as the means for indulging in underage sex.
The opera is about an internet liaison between two teenage boys: one a 16-year-old, the other pre-pubescent.
The younger boy adopts a female identity on the web to trick the older boy into killing him.
The death is then investigated by a female detective strikingly reminiscent of Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect, and not surprisingly, she’s driven to drink by the complexities of the internet killing.
Thankfully, apart from the odd bit of masturbation in front of a laptop or a stolen kiss between the two boys, there’s nothing remotely shocking. Rather, it’s the asexual internet itself that is the centre of attention, and, as the opera is a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, there’s a terrific US pace in the performance.
Most of the singing is through Tweeted messages displayed on screens for the audience to read; singers walk around with laptops in their hands; and the chorus is seated in a huge internet café looking at glowing screens.
Muhly’s music goes well with the internet opera: it’s heavily influenced by the John Adams/Philip Glass style of repetitive music based on changing arpeggios morphing through changing keys.
By its nature, it’s devoid of tunes. But this is outweighed by the changing orchestral instrumentation as momentum gathers pace. This works particularly well in the set choral pieces that develop into huge sound blocks filling the large spaces of the Coliseum.
Susan Bickley makes for a convincing detective inspector, even though she’s not given much strong material to make her mark.
Rather, Nicky Spence as the older boy is excellent singing Muhly’s love songs to his laptop.
The libretto by playwright Craig Lucas exploits the internet context well.
Conductor Rumon Gamba is at home with the challenging score, coaxing the orchestra into some fine playing.