Recital 1/ Into the Little Hill - Buxton Festival

This spine-tingling re-imagining of The Pied Piper fable receives a welcome revival following its acclaimed London premiere in 2009. Into the Little Hill is George Benjamin’s first music theatre work and won him a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. The Opera Group/London Sinfonietta 2009 production was also nominated in the Opera category at the South Bank Show Awards in 2010.

Desperate to shore up a flagging public vote, a morally bankrupt politician promises to exterminate a town’s plague of rats. A faceless stranger arrives and offers his services; but when The Mayor refuses to pay, his actions have terrible repercussions for the town’s population. The telling of the story is pared-down, with just two female singers sharing all the roles. However, the eerily beautiful and highly original score, performed by an ensemble of fifteen, is rich and totally spell-binding.

The double bill includes another extraordinary work of contemporary music theatre, Luciano Berio’s Recital I (For Cathy) in a new staging by John Fulljames.

Written for Berio’s wife and muse Cathy Berberian, this fascinating and striking work was premiered in 1972 by London Sinfonietta, with Berio conducting. The piece deconstructs a song recital, as a star singer tries to hold her life, and her performance, together in the face of an emotional breakdown caused by marital crisis.

This production features Susan Bickley in this iconic role and uses excerpts from Susan’s own repertoire, ranging from Monteverdi to Mozart and Mussorgorsky, alongside Berio’s score.

Image: Claire Booth and Susan Bickley, © Alastair Muir, 2009