A first for the composer’s scheme at the JAM on the Marsh festival this year was the creation of four chamber operas, marking the 30th anniversary of film maker Derek Jarman’s death from aids. 

Resident in Romney Marsh, where the festival is held, prior to his death, Jarman’s life and work formed the inspiration for these four young composers. 

Joined by four singers from the Royal College of Music, each opera is around 16 minutes long and scored for four voices with piano. 

Left to right: Ceferina Penny · soprano Angelina Dorlin-Barlow · mezzo-soprano Benedict Munden · tenor James Emerson · bass

Jago Thornton - Wittgenstein 

Jarman’s 1993 penultimate feature film Wittgenstein is loosely based on the life story of queer philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and his experiences in the first World War, relationship with David Pinsent and as a student at Cambridge. 

For Jago Thornton’s opera, we are immediately met with a compositional style focused on depth, drama and lyricism. Each of the three short acts is arresting, with colour matching the complexities of Wittgenstein’s relationships and experiences. 

Words are set with clear intention and Thornton has a clear aptitude for writing for voices. Piano interludes hold great power and drama, masterfully performed by Travis Bloom, though never overpowering the singers when accompanying. 

Soprano Ceferina Perry stands out as Lady Ottoline Morrell, with James Emerson a strong Wittgenstein with a beautiful tone. It’s a tall order for these four singers to sing over an hour of complex new music, and some tiredness was evident from the voices, especially in higher registers. 

Act 2 focussed on the relationship with Wittgenstein’s lover, David Pinsent. Writing for the two men brought tender, entwined vocal parts with an original and engaging harmonic structure. 

As soldiers burst in and begin to ridicule Wittgenstein’s relationship, reading the letter he’s writing, a great dramatic shift was seen in the music and articulated repetition hammered home the intolerance of homosexual relationships. The word ‘pervert’ returned in various iterations as Wittgenstein begged them to ‘give that back’. 

Masks then replaced soldier uniform as three singers picked up hand bells and become a part of Wittgenstein’s hallucinations. 

For this final section, a climax is movingly reached at ‘I would like so much to keep on living’. In this final meditative section, as Wittgenstein moves in and out of consciousness, chant-like elements are present in the vocal writing and it ends with the singers, unaccompanied, walking out of sight.  

Toby Anderson – The Canonisation of Derek Jarman 

What if Derek Jarman were canonised? A modern saint? Toby Anderson’s opera The Canonisation of Derek Jarman introduces us to the 'Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence', a movement founded in the 70s to satirise and criticse issues of morality and sexuality within the Catholic church. They are speaking to Jarman at Prospect Cottage, there to Canonise him. 

From the outset, Anderson’s opera has a clear genre fluidity, which serves its subject brilliantly. It’s a work of unity, with chorus and harmony providing much of the colour and movement within the work. 

Off-beat piano notes combine with extended vocal techniques, including panting, to provide a feeling of intense breathlessness before three more characters arrive. 

It brings three time-travellers from Jarman’s 1978 film Jubilee; Queen Elizabeth I, Doctor John Dee, and Ariel from Shakespeare’s Tempest. Each with a different head-dress, they argue with Jarman about art and gardening and often swap roles. 

Anderson doesn’t hang around. The drama is fast-paced, using all four voices for maximum impact, often overlapping to create a delirious confusion. It is begging for an orchestration, though Anderson more than exploits the limited forces available. 

The second scene introduces a tenderness to the drama as the conversation shifts to queerness and love. A pure, high declaration from Jarman, now performed beautifully by Angelina Dorlin-Barlow, appears: ‘Sexuality is as wide as the sea.’ The piano writing is simple and repetitive as each character reflects on their desires. 

The nuns introduce themselves in the final scene, ‘Sister Luscious Lashes, Sister Bipolar Disfunction’, overlapping, on a single note, accompanied by deep, resonant piano notes. Anderson brings comedy through their understanding of church music, adding an extra level of humor and impact. 

It ends with an arresting homophonic, punctuated ‘psalm’ chant before the piano has the last word with an unsettling, unfinished chord pattern. There is a glorious feeling of unity and strength from the singers working as a great force through this opera. It has moments where each is exposed, but not without tremendous support, both from each other and Anderson’s thoughtful accompaniment. 

Roseanna Dunn – War Requiem 

‘Who will speak for me,’ one haunting mezzo voice asks. Then, as a book is thrown on the floor an anger ensues, ‘we can’t all be poets’. 

Based on Jarman’s 1989 film, Roseanna Dunn’s opera War Requiem follows a narrative of ethical dilemmas. Questions of war and conflict are presented out of context, arresting the audience with their impact. Focus in Dunn’s opera is on emotion and experience rather than following a story narrative. 

With the themes and perspectives surrounding Remembrance Sunday being highly politicised in recent years, Dunn’s opera takes the risk of vocalising these different definitions of ‘fight’. She writes that ‘this work encourages audiences to consider whose perspectives get forgotten when we choose to remember [victims of war]’. 

Sometimes this decision to abandon a narrative structure muddled the opera’s flow, but it was in line with Jarman’s legacy to choose this direction. The repeated phrase ‘It can be heaven as well,’ showcased Dunn’s beautiful, lyrical writing, as well as the ethical confusions around war. She found a sweetness to the sound and flowing synergy between the four voices. 

Opening with a sparkling solo soprano introducing the impact of word painting. Coming to a head on the word ‘dead’, the opening section draws us into the complexities of art and war. Dunn also chose to include spoken dialogue for impact, as well as extended piano and vocal techniques and extremes of range. The word ‘war’ is also played about with, giving time for the audience to contemplate.

It’s a piece of intimate thought - art of exposition and cleverly formed around the constraints of the forces available and encouraging both the tender and arresting sides to the human voice. 

Sam Buttler – Caravaggio  

Another opera taking inspiration from a Jarman film, Sam Buttler’s Caravaggio makes use of the darker voices at hand, this time leaving out the soprano voice in his chamber opera. 

It tells a fictionalised story of Renaissance painter Caravaggio, and as Buttler explains in the opera’s synopsis, is ‘merging the love triangle from Jarman’s film with the creation of his painting Madonna di Loretto.’ 

It is the perfect writing for Benedict Munden’s tenor voice as Caravaggio, who opens the opera with a tender, lyrical section accompanied by repetitive dark, dissonant piano chords. 

Soon joined by two further voices, the entwined Lena and her partner Ranuccio, the mood changes to a rhythmical, syncopated major tonality almost Steve Reich-esque in its style. Lena tells Caravaggio she can ‘give you my body’ as model for his painting. 

The lamenting trio on ‘this is how it must be’ brought an element of depressing acceptance in the confusion of love, and especially the triangular love pattern emerging between the three characters. 

Grahame Davies’s libretto offers moments of wisdom, set masterfully by Buttler: ‘And just like when the moon puts out the sun. I can only look upon you when you’re gone.’ 

More electronic-sounding repetitive piano enters to push the narrative on, through the painting of the picture. It explores the intimacy in sitting for art and the merging of art and desire. It asks questions of funnelling fantasy and desire through art. Davies’s libretto suggests euphemisms as Caravaggio is painting his subjects: ‘that’s what I always wanted’, ‘let me look at you’. 

Towards the end, the narrative turns to the truth of Caravaggio’s desire and longing, with a darkness never leaving the piano accompaniment. Eastern folk-style melodies take us into a different colour as the three declare ‘I wanted you too’. 

It’s a piece of beauty and colour, though sometimes without the clarity in character, drama or plot needed to capture an audience on first viewing. 

The four operas are available to watch via JAM Virtual until 15 September