This week, a new chamber opera by the outrageous Dave Heath has a gaffe or two to blow. It’s all about the murky side of orchestral life – on the one hand, the pitiful salaries of ordinary musicians, the inflated fees and egos of conductors, and the disingenuousness of concert agents; on the other, the drunken, adulterous and incestuous behaviour that Heath claims is rife among the orchestral family.
and later
His new opera – An Everyday Occurrence – centres on a love triangle between a middle-aged male oboist, a pretty young female oboist in her first job, and the wife of the former. Lust enters the equation, and the outcome is predictable. Heath confesses it is semi-autobiographical. “Some of the things that go on in orchestral life are so outrageous no-one would believe it,” he says. “There’s nothing in this opera that I haven’t seen for myself. But I’m not having a go at anyone in particular. It’s as much a tragic, contemporary love story as a satirical farce.”
and even later
They don’t enter the action in an obvious way, Heath says. “Their presence is interactive, the singers emerging from within the orchestra only at the point when they enter the action.”
Hmmm. Okay then ….
RTWT
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