An invitation is waiting on every seat at the Royal Opera House: “The Klingefeldt family invites you to a festive dinner to celebrate this special occasion.” Everyone in the audience is a guest at this riotous and harrowing family reunion.
If the name Klingefeldt rings a bell, it is because it comes from Thomas Vinterberg’s cult film Festen, which won the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. It seems strange that nobody has thought of turning it into an opera before, now that we have this hardly less compelling adaptation by composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Lee Hall.
Was the original a grim expose of child abuse or a black comedy? Vinterberg’s pioneering brand of film-making, using handheld cameras as though in a documentary, treads a fine line between the two with the niftiest of footwork.
Opera, though, is a different kind of beast. It works best when dealing with strong situations and Turnage’s Festen, receiving its premiere at the Royal Opera, plays both the comedy and the horror to the hilt. Though less subtle, the result is funnier, sharper and more lacerating in its emotional punch.
The die is cast from the start. The opera opens with a comic “Hello” ensemble as the Klingefeldt family gathers for the 60th birthday of patriarch Helge. Chefs whirl across the stage like a musical comedy act. The guests argue farcically whether it is lobster or salmon in the fish soup.
Into this lurid atmosphere drops the bombshell of the eldest son’s speech. Christian accuses his father of abusing him and his twin sister, Linda, in an aria set by Turnage with a restraint that catches the breath. Nothing is the same after that, and the opera’s more pensive moments — such as grandma’s lyrical solo about “ancient woods” — mostly come as diversions from these darkest of revelations.
It is an irony that one of the prime goals of Vinterberg’s Dogme 95 movement was to make films with no background music. Now here is Turnage blazing away, from the virtuoso trumpet parts near the start to a climactic orchestral interlude that sums up the emotions with a finality reminiscent of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.
Elsewhere, the operatic scale is not all gain. Turnage and Hall have kept in all the film’s cast and, with 27 named characters on stage plus chorus (how will other companies afford it?), the central players in this family saga are in danger of getting lost.
It will take a tenor of exceptional strength and clarity to make as powerful an impact as Allan Clayton does as Christian. Neither the father nor the younger son is fully developed here, though Gerald Finley creates a suitably urbane figure as Helge and Stéphane Degout makes a striking impact as the younger son Michael when he can. In the clinching moment of the drama, Natalya Romaniw is eloquent as Helena, the surviving sister, delivering proof of their father’s guilt. Among the multitude of smaller roles, John Tomlinson, characterful as ever, has fun with the forgetful grandpa and Rosie Aldridge gives stature to the conflicted mother, Else.
The production is by master of black comedy Richard Jones, who manages the large cast with skill, and Edward Gardner conducts Turnage’s vibrant orchestral score with panache. It is hard to imagine Festen the opera being better done.
In the closing minutes, the opera breaks with the film to deliver a clear message. The ghost of abused daughter Linda asks “Is there anywhere on Earth where we are always kept safe?”, and then the guests depart, apparently unperturbed, leaving Christian to wonder whether anything has changed. Denial, Festen says, is perhaps the biggest crime of all.
★★★★★
To February 27, rbo.org.uk
