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The cast of We Are The Lucky Ones | Credit: De Nationale Opera, Koen Broos

Philip Venables and Ted Huffman know how to pack a punch. These concept kings of opera have wowed the world with chamber opera Denis and Katya back in 2019, then The Faggots And Their Friends Between Revolutions which began in Aix in 2023. This project for Amsterdam’s Opera Forward Festival is their largest yet, their first ‘orchestral opera’ with a score that witnesses Venables at his grandest and most dense.

The story is based on interviews with more than 70 people in Western Europe who were born between 1940 and 1949 developed with playwright Nina Segal. It’s a concept that grows as the opera progresses but begins with scenes of overwhelming and confusing confrontation. We watch the time pass as scenes pass from reflections of being born in a snowstorm to ration books and peeling oranges. The score does little in these moments to bring its audience in, and prefers, instead, to lean on auditory overwhelm.

Venables seems to be lost in writing this very serious grand scale opera that he often loses sight of required levels and often overpowers his singers. The orchestration is dense and overly large (the opera itself is, perhaps, at least half an hour too long), making much of the lines unclear in the opera’s first scenes. Still, as it progresses and the irony of the libretto builds, Venables returns to the sarcasm and wit that he does so well. A brassy waltz appears as the cast sing: ‘we’re lucky that we’re still together’, and he meticulously uses brass, saxophone, piano and percussion to blur the lines of time and place.

Visually, the staging felt like a cheap economy of means for no apparent reason. Its backdrop was a grey panelling, upon which the cast stuck large pieces of paper, creating a wall for projection of photographs. The projection had an interesting comment on memory, though almost single-handedly supported the dialogue. Props were minimal, with a standing lamp danced with on one occasion and a gramophone which was gloriously integrated by Venables later in the opera.

Claron McFadden as One (left) and Jacquelyn Stucker as Two | Credit: De Nationale Opera, Koen Broos

The cast were dressed in different variations of preppy evening wear, but this didn’t hold up against the dialogue or movements of time and felt thoughtlessly pedestrian. Moments of clever movement brought out the irony in the libretto and the commentary that Venables and Huffman intended. Tenor Miles Mykannen, dressed as an 83-year-old woman tap danced about being 80, whilst the bass Alex Rosen body-popped along to his monologue.

Equally scored for eight singers, the cast proved their worth and gave great performances of the material given. Memorable moments came from Jacqueline Stucker and Frederick Ballentinen in tenderly-scored arias but I often begged for space to process. Content upon content made the opera feel, at times, like a wrath of noise. Maybe that was the point, but I needed greater convincing. The Residentie Orkest The Hague under conductor Bassem Akiki were doing their absolute best with the complication of Venables’s dense score.

Still, there were elements of great maturity and arresting poignancy. ‘Most people would choose to live as comfortably as possible within a broken system, rather than try to build something new,’ was a line that accompanied me as I left the theatre. Capitalism reigns supreme in these people’s reflections of the world and many of us will recognise our own connections in the irritating witterings of older relatives complaining of cleaners, bragging about philanthropy and taking faint accountability for the state of the world.

It was an opera I hoped to love, but was left waiting to be convinced by. Venables and Huffman may be better suited, and able to draw out greater impact, on a smaller scale.