BENJAMIN: Into the Little Hill/Dream of the Song
Plitmann, Bickley; Mehta, Cox; London Sinfonietta, Benjamin; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Nederlands Kamerkoor, Benjamin. Text and translations. Nimbus NI5964
GEORGE BENJAMIN’S Written on Skin became a contemporary classic following its 2012 premiere at Aix-en-Provence; less attention has been paid to the British composer’s 2006 chamber opera, Into the Little Hill. Librettist Martin Crimp, who also wrote the text for Written on Skin, retells the Pied Piper story as a creepy David Lynchian thriller
There’s an extreme economy of means in this thirty-five-minute work, which is not so much an opera as a musical fable or parable: soprano Hila Plitmann and contralto Susan Bickley portray all the characters, tacking on phrases such as “says the Minister’s Wife” to identify their role at a given moment. As the Stranger, Plitmann is soft and seductive as she tells of music’s power to “unravel the clouds”; moments later, she snaps into a maniacal presence, leaping up to a high B on her demand that the Minister swear by his sleeping child. The soprano relishes Benjamin’s colorful word-painting—she breaks “rats” into two syllables, with a long pause before the final “-ts” so that it resembles the hiss of an extinguished flame.