The Stage

Manifest Destiny

Published Wednesday 31 August 2005 at 13:35 by Nick Awde

A modern opera starts in a London flat. It’s the near future. Leila is a Palestinian poet, Daniel a blind Jewish composer. They are lovers collaborating on an opera but progress is interrupted by Leila’s desire to return to the Middle East to join the struggle against the injustices committed against the Arab world. “I am the poet of the Arabian darkness come to bring light!” she sings, unintentionally conjuring images of messaianic Christianity and the pre-Islamic Jahiliyya era.

She abandons Daniel for the Holy Land, where she becomes involved with a suicide bomber cell. Love blossoms again as co-bomber Mohammed falls for her but their tangled quest leads them to Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, where tragedy unfolds just as Daniel regains his sight in far-off London.

Interludes along the way eavesdrop on the White House, where newly elected President Hillary Clinton and the Director of the CIA debate their ‘Manifest Destiny’ for the New World Order.

Bernadette Lord creates a convincing Leila, her clear voice soaring in the welcoming church acoustics of St George’s West. Adding strong support are Paul Carey Jones’s rock-solid Mohammed, Peter Willcock’s cynical CIA director and Peter Furlong’s sensitive Daniel.

Dic Edwards’s unfussy lyrics sit well on the light, if limited, melodies of composer Keith Burstein, who accompanies on piano. Of its essence static and overambitious in scope, the production is undeniably arresting in the visual and aural departments, thanks especially to Ralph Steadman’s manic images that form a constantly projected backdrop.

You won’t learn much about politics and certainly nothing about Muslims (irritatingly and naively confused here with Arabs), but you will discover much to do with human emotions. With a full cast, arrangement and set, it would be rewarding to experience its full potential.