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Love Counts

Published Monday 17 July 2006 at 18:35 by David Gutman

Twenty years on from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Michael Nyman returns to the problems of perception. A two-hander with coarsely poetic dialogue and an almost-happy ending, the opera recounts the unlikely affair between an innumerate boxer at the end of his career and a maths lecturer, herself the victim of an abusive marriage some time in the past.

It is staged with winning economy by Lindsay Posner and designer Paul McKintosh. With 13 expert instrumentalists semi-concealed and an iconic silver-grey tree positioned centre-stage, the action is forced forward, framed by an ersatz proscenium arch constructed of ring ropes. Neil Austin’s lighting is crucial, the numbers that variously affect the lives of the protagonists not only chalked up on the walls but suspended in fluorescent tubes of red and blue.

And yet, even with the action divided into 21 short cinematic scenes, the evening feels longer than it should. Perhaps this is because the music content is oddly peripheral. Accompanimental textures chug along happily enough, variously allusive, until, for no particular reason, different harmonic and rhythmic configurations arrive to supplant them. Some stretches are touching, others dull or cheesy. This does at least mean that Michael Hastings’ text retains a primacy rare in contemporary music theatre. Tonight’s protagonists ensure that we catch every word. While Andrew Slater as a sympathetic Patsy is taxed by some of the low notes, Helen Williams gives an extraordinary performance as Avril. Surely too young for the part as conceived, her voice is in terrific shape and her acting is too.

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