Festen. Celebration. Bad boy composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Lee Hall invite you to Denmark, to a party to celebrate Helge Klingefeldt’s 60th birthday. There was certainly a party atmosphere in the auditorium. Birthday cards on every seat. A welcome banner stretching above the stalls.
Turned out it was to be the birthday party from hell. Because the family’s eldest son, Christian used his after-dinner speeches to out his father as a serial sexual abuser who had raped him and his twin sister Linda repeatedly as children. Their mother, Else, had turned a blind eye.
Now I don’t know about your family, but if an equivalent accusation had been levelled at a Malone/Blyth festen (there are many such), it would have cast a blight on the proceedings. Not so in the family-owned hotel, where celebrations went on pretty much uninterrupted. Shocking.
Any Church of England bishops in the sold-out house would have been familiar with the plot. Two days later, at its General Synod on 13 February, held just down the road from Covent Garden in Westminster, it stalled a proposal to outsource sexual abuse complaints levelled by those in the church’s care, to a new independent body.
It was a bombshell November 2024 report detailing abuse perpetrated by an evangelical lay preacher, John Smyth, and a cover-up dating back decades which resulted in the recent resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Life imitating opera.
The opera Festen is based on the 1998 Thomas Vinterberg film of the same name, a winner at the Cannes Film Festival. The first film of the Dogme 95 movement founded by Vinterberg and Lars von Trier to give artists control of the filmmaking process rather than movie studios. Well, that was short lived!
Part of the technique was the occasional use of handheld cameras focusing on chaotic action, allowing a more complete portrayal of minor characters. It proved ideal material for the Turnage/Hall partnership. Their black comedy opera relies on character development through backstories, sometimes hilarious. Sometimes tragic.
There are 25 named characters – as well as a slew of twenty solo voices, unnamed kitchen workers and super numerary actors. A packed stage. And this is what they got up to.
We are in Denmark. Hamlet territory. That’s relevant. Allan Clayton, the fabulous British tenor who sings Christian, was Hamlet in Brett Dean’s opera. I caught him at New York’s Met in 2022. Good to see him in Covent Garden. Denouncing dad, instead of stepdad.
At Helge and Else Klingefeldt’s hotel, family, friends and business associates are gathered to celebrate Helge’s 60th birthday. There is a traditional Danish birthday song. All the guests greet each other with repeated “Hello’s”. Goes on forever. The purpose of that empty, repetitive salutation will become clear at the conclusion when they …. (Spoiler alert, ed. Wait for it!)
The uninvited guest trick is deployed. Michael, the youngest son and black sheep of the family – he didn’t want to be a lawyer. Imagine! Turns up with his dysfunctional wife Mette and three anarchic children. He blags his way in, prevailing against a snooty receptionist, Lars, who knows him perfectly well but affects not to find him on the list.
Dad asks Christian to speak about his recently deceased twin at dinner. Christian, with a hint of menace responds, “I am prepared”.
Scene II moves from the lobby to a split set. Michael and Mette’s bedroom, a bathroom and Christian’s room. The bath in the middle is where Linda committed suicide. Sub plots emerge.
Christian has previously had a relationship with Pia a waitress, who is keen to get back on hanky-panky terms. Mezzo soprano, Clare Presland, carries off the role with brio. She tells of her travels since they last met and reels of a Rolodex of failed affairs, much like Leporello’s list aria in Don Giovanni. She wants a bath – and more – and asks Christian to undo her, but he falls asleep.
Meantime à la chambre Michael/Mette, they are deep into their abusive relationship. He, taking her to task for not having packed black shoes. Physical violence follows. But this turns out to be the prelude to their version of conflict resolution. Noisy all fours sex on the bed. Until the children breenge in.
In the bathroom, the younger sister, Helena, assisted by Lars, finds marks on the ceiling and wall pointing to a light fitting where she finds a last message from Linda.
Helena was sung by Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw. I had been tipped off a couple of days before by someone in the arts promotion world to look out for her. Good advice. Romaniw has a lustrous voice and was a celebrated Tosca at ROH last season.
She has replaced Lise Davidsen – the Norwegian soprano is expecting – in their upcoming Die Walküre as Sieglinde. I desperately want to hear her, but it’s a season sell-out. If Chloe Westwood, head of press affairs at Covent Garden, reads this – take pity. Stop ignoring my emails. Pretty please, a restricted view seat on level 6 is all I crave.
Romaniw’s voice is truly majestic. She has recorded only one CD, Arion: Voice of a Slavic Soul. Romaniw is Welsh/I Ukrainian. Get it on your playlist. I am thankful for the recommendation and happy to pass it on.
In Act II, we are at the centre of the action. Crowded table. Christian taunts his father. Choose the speech. Blue card or green. It’s a reference to a game of choice his father played with him as a child. The first stirrings of sinister undertones.
He reveals in graphic detail how he was sexually abused, but almost surreally, other toasts are proposed. Else, mother, recalls that Christian had an invented friend, “Snoot”. “I think we have heard from Snoot tonight”, she sneers.
Michael manhandles and locks Christian in a wine cellar and returns to the party to insult Helen’s boyfriend Gbatokia by leading a song in which everyone joins in “Baa Baa black sheep”. Racial prejudice meets paedophilia.
Amidst this mayhem, Helen reads the letter found in Linda’s bathroom. She committed suicide because of Helge’s repeated sexual abuse.
The action moves to the kitchen where Michael has a violent confrontation with his father. The audience is led to believe Helge is dead. Meanwhile, the party goes on next door.
There is a Coda in Act III, the next morning, when all the guests assemble. Saying repeated “Good mornings” to each other – neatly bookending the “Hellos” at the beginning. They arrived knowing nothing, they leave knowing everything, but they prefer to bury their heads in the sand.
Helge appears, small bandage only on his left cheek. Unlike the film where he is cast into the wilderness, he is a survivor. The audience leaves, unsettled. It is a brilliant plot twist to offer no closure.
Comic highlights. Grandma, mezzo soprano Susan Bickley’s heroic effort to restore order by standing up at the height of the dinner party mayhem and singing a traditional folk song, barely making herself heard.
Grandad’s speech following Christian’s devastating revelation when he tries to recall advising Helge to become attractive to women by stuffing a potato into his budgie smugglers. Didn’t work. “You should have stuffed it down the front.”
A family friend Master of Ceremonies, Helmut, baritone Thomas Oliemans, who attempts to maintain order, pretending nothing unusual has taken place. Sexual abuse? “Time for dessert”.
A hilarious conga sequence where the family and guests danced through the set, in a bravo attempt to reinstate the impression that the party was on script.
Then there were the subplots. The staff, loyal to Helge, stopped guests leaving, which they tried to do after Christian’s speech, by hiding their car keys. And so, the party – conveniently for the opera – went on.
Michael’s confrontation with Michelle, the waitress he had slept with on a previous visit, threatening to tell all and sundry – but mostly Mette.
Richard Jones, Director and Miriam Buether, Set Designer deserve a shout out. Jones for compacting so much meaningful, focused action into 90 minutes. There was never a dull moment. All the conflicting emotions were convincingly crafted. Characters beautifully drawn and given their moment in the spotlight.
Even the audience was at the party. At one point the house lights went up and streamers descended.
Edward Gardner conducted the often lyrical, but demanding score. It required precision from the ROH orchestra, which Gardner delivered. Turnage never affects the atonal, but his music drives forward constantly confronting the audience.
Opera in your face from the composer who sports a perma-hat. I spotted the hat dashing through the café as pre-performance bells clanged. Yet his work is not over-showy. Always seems to have its tongue in its cheek. The arresting climax of Christian’s aria was beautifully crafted.
And a true partnership with librettist Hall. Symbiosis. That’s all that needs be said. Hall understands how to make words fit the music. That may sound bleeding obvious. But it’s not a given.
Festen is one in a series of dysfunctional family operas in the current repertoire. Mikael Karlsson’s Fanny and Alexander, at La Monnaie/De Munt. Good heavens! The children are abused at the hands of a harsh stepfather. A bishop to boot!
And the upcoming Avner Dorman opera Wahnfried, Longborough Festival Opera’s take on the Wagner family post the great composer’s death. Succession, in the Cotswolds but with better music.
Turnage has a bad boy reputation because he produces confrontational operas, notably The Silver Tassie, Greek, and Anna Nicole. Rather, he truly has the knack of latching onto current social themes, especially taboos. Tell the story. Warts and all. Opera is simply the most powerful medium to deliver the message.
After the rollercoaster premiere of Festen, I hope he and Lee Hall have more mayhem on the stocks.
Read more from Gerald Malone on The Rest is Opera