Tobias Picker’s opera‚ to a libretto by Gene Scheer adapted from Emile Zola’s novel‚ was first performed at Dallas in late 2001. Zola himself wrote four opera librettos – all for Alfred Bruneau – and the theme of Thérèse Raquin has inspired many imitators‚ especially among American crime writers such as James M Cain (in whose The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity there are distinct echoes). Picker and Scheer divide the story into 11 scenes. Three long ones form the First Act – ending with the murder. With the exception of this (Thérèse and her lover‚ Laurent‚ drown her husband in the Seine)‚ all the action takes place in the Raquin household‚ the rooms over a haberdasher’s shop. Act 2 is more fragmentary‚ focusing on the pair of murderers as their life together becomes more nightmarish‚ observed silently by the figure of Mme Raquin‚ the dead man’s mother‚ who has been left dumb and paralysed by a stroke. The whole of the sequence in which Laurent makes daily visits to the morgue‚ looking for his victim’s corpse‚ and Zola’s descriptions of his nightmares in his solitary room has gone‚ as has the sub­plot of his affair with an artist’s model. The very end of the story‚ in which the pair are finally reconciled as they drink poison together‚ is here altered into something that verges on grand guignol as Thérèse stabs herself‚ and then Laurent drinks poison. In an essay in the booklet‚ Graeme Jenkins makes out a convincing case for Picker’s construction of the score‚ introducing dissonance more and more in the second act to depict the gradual souring of the love affair. In particular what he calls the ‘trudging pizzicati’ that underline the ‘oddly placed’ violin interjections sometimes suggest the world of Glass and Adams. Elsewhere the music is awash with orchestral effects that recall American operas from Copland to Barber and Blitzstein. I did not have a libretto to consult while listening to the CDs‚ so it is a tribute to the singers that I was able to make out nearly every word. Sara Fulgoni injects a vivid passion into her voice in the gruesome wedding­night duet‚ when all she and Laurent can do is recall the murder. The dead man‚ Camille‚ is cast for a tenor‚ suggesting his sickly weakness‚ while the brutal Laurent is a baritone. Both Gordon Gietz and Richard Bernstein make the most of the opportunities afforded them‚ Gietz especially in an aria in which‚ as a ghost‚ he tells of his fate to his sleeping mother. The banality of the words does little to help the music – ‘The Seine moves like a melody’‚ ‘I’ll bring up the coal now’‚ ‘She’ll never make it through the night’‚ ‘We must have good champagne’ and so on. The scene of Mme Raquin’s stroke is a screaming match which puts the most terrible strain on Diana Soviero’s voice. Picker’s opera has a great deal of energy and is performed here by a group of accomplished singers‚ in a recording that captures the orchestral textures and Graeme Jenkins’s dedication to the score. The best that can be said of it is that it sends one scurrying back to the novel – one of the great masterpieces of 19th­century fiction.