Tobias and the Angel

Description

This opera is not primarily written for the stage, but to be performed in a church, hence the term "A Church Opera." A bit like a staged oratorio, but with a moving dramaturgy and real characters interacting with each other, unlike baroque or classical oratorios where the narration generally takes precedence over theatrical action, and the characters are less dramatically defined. Viewed from this angle, "Tobias and the Angel" by the British Jonathan Dove bridges the two genres: musical theater and sacred drama, with opera singers assigned the main roles, mixed with the congregation who sing the choirs and crowds. The instrumental ensemble is limited to an organ - statutorily available in a church! - a violin, a double bass, an accordion, a flute, a clarinet, a harp, a double bass, that's it. Naturally, the work must be staged. So far, dozens of large churches and cathedrals in the Anglo-Saxon world have fought over it since its creation in 1999, as well as several "normal" opera houses, even if that is not the intention of the composer and the librettist, who designed it for the acoustics, reverberation, atmosphere, and the very function of places of worship. Musically, Dove - the most performed contemporary opera composer in Great Britain - operates in a world inherited from Stravinsky, Britten, Weill, Orff, cabaret, klezmer, gamelan, minimalists, in short, yet another unclassifiable character who has managed to create his own world without ever renouncing the roots of the past century. © Abeille Musique 2010