Krishna Review – The secret of John Tavener’s ‘Sufi Pantomime’ is why it’s on stage | classical music

TThe first thing you should know about John Taviner’s 2005 opera Krishna is that it is actually an “occult pantomime.” If that idea elicits even the slightest amusement, this is not the country opera for you. The second thing you should know is that by the end of Krishna’s posthumous world premiere at Grange Park Opera, there was a standing ovation for the musicians.

Rightly so. Were it not for Ross Ramgobin’s intense and poised commitment to the role of the celestial narrator, or Eliran Kadusi’s gentle and supple turn as the teenage Krishna, or the extremely articulate and impressively graceful sopranos of Rosa Sparks (the child Krishna), Nazan Fikret (his wife Rukmini), Jennifer Statham and Julia Sitkovetsky (Rada as child and woman respectively), this short work could have been even more infinitely special.

In the pit, Gascoigne’s orchestra provided frequent drones and occasional brass riffs. There were shimmering textures, textures that pulsed and crackled, and a set of gongs swinging noisily against Tavener’s post-Wagnerian simplicity. Repetition was common, as were sudden switches and stops, conducted by conductor Mark Shanahan with the dispassionate efficiency of a seasoned traffic police officer. Nao Masuda’s onstage drumming interventions—brutal and balletic—characterized the piece’s fifteen scenes and were easily the most dramatic thing to happen.

Krishna is a collection of vignettes from the life of the Hindu god, each introduced by a celestial narrator. The Sanskrit and English text were by Taviner himself, although the British Hindu scholar Ranchor Prime credits him with “some inspiration for the mantras and some of the words”. Much of the text was inaudible – the result of loud, melismatic vocal lines on the one hand and muddy orchestral and choral textures on the other – and subtitles often disappeared before the given words were sung.

In David Pountney’s production, the characters stood around and occasionally struck poses, leaving the acting to six dancers. During the “Ecstatic Love Play,” Radha and Krishna faced the audience before writhing mysteriously on two separate beds on either side of the stage. Evil arrived several times in the wash of red light. The deadly serpent was a large inflatable doll, and Krishna’s struggle with it was known to anyone who had tried to pack an air bed. In one scene, the chorus—sitting in a pyramid shape the entire time, as if in a pre-perspective painting—inexplicably makes rapid Mexican waves.

Mainstream cultural attitudes have changed significantly in the twenty years since Krishna wrote. But not only did it seem old-fashioned in its broad, white-British discussion of a major world religion; It seemed as if it came straight out of a 19th-century operatic Orientalism book. Grange Park’s desire to present a world premiere in a difficult economic climate is commendable. But some work is better left undone.