Viva Lewes Issue #161 February 2020

ON THIS MONTH: MUSIC
La Dafne
‘A #metoo tale of its era’
“The closest natural human sound to opera singing,”
says internationally acclaimed stage director
Thomas Guthrie, down the phone from Barcelona’s
Barrio Gotico, “is actually a baby crying.”
Thomas is in the Catalan capital in order to direct
Verdi’s Aida, at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, which
is about as big as it gets, opera-wise.
But he’s talking to Viva about his subsequent
project, of a rather smaller nature: a performance
in February, by young musicians, at
Hove’s Old Market, of Marco da Gagliano’s little
known 1608 opera La Dafne.
“It’s great to work in a space like the Liceu,” he
says. “But my work is the same wherever I do
it. It’s important to make the work interesting
and fun – to bring it to life – however big the
stage, however much or little money you have
to spend.”
He likens his job to that of a film director: “the
conductor deals with the music you hear, I deal
with everything you see,” he says.
La Dafne is a Brighton Early Music Festival
performance, and Thomas is a big fan of that
institution. You might remember his staging of
Monteverdi’s Orfeo, reset in the 60s Brighton of
the Mods and Rockers, also at the Old Market,
which received five-star reviews.
He’s not worried that the obscure nature of the
latest work will limit the audience to baroque
opera aficionados, few, let’s face it, in number.
“Deborah [Roberts, BREMF founder and director]
has done enough brilliant work to build up an
audience who are going to trust her – and trust us
– to give them a good ride,” he says, hoping that
the familiar faces will be bolstered by audience
members looking for something a little different.
And La Dafne, one of the very first pieces of work
identifiable as ‘opera’, is certainly unusual. The
libretto is an adaptation of a tale from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, itself a retelling of an old Greek
myth. The ‘Dafne’ of the title, a young nymph,
attempts to escape the lecherous clutches of the
all-powerful god Apollo, eventually maintaining
her chastity by turning into a tree. “Being a myth
it’s the sort of story we can all relate to,” he says.
“You could say that it’s a #metoo tale of its era.”
It’s not the sort of opera you’d search out on
Spotify for a bit of background music, he admits.
“But in my opinion opera is both a visual and an
oral medium – it’s not either, it’s both, and when
they come together to tell a story, the whole thing
comes to life, which is a unique thing.”
And as for the baby-wailing analogy: “It’s something
we all have hard-wired into us. Babies don’t
cry all the time, it’s usually life or death. If they
don’t get attention, they don’t survive. And opera
is usually very much about human need. Combine
that sort of sound with a great story, and that’s
why the medium is enduringly popular.”
Alex Leith
The Old Market, Feb 8th–9th, theoldmarket.com
Photo by Theresa Pewal
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