Seeking Solace for the Death of Children

George Benjamin's new opera at the Linbury; ENO revives a tremendous Peter Grimes

The Mother (Ema Nikolovska) consults with the Art Collector (John Brancy) Picture by Camilla Greenwell

George Benjamin’s fourth opera, Picture A Day Like This, is his second to have been premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. It has now received its first performance in the UK - at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre, in the Aix production (last July).

Unlike its immediate predecessors (Lessons in Love and Violence and Written on Skin), the new piece is a chamber opera, but with larger forces than Into the Little Hill, Benjamin’s first essay in the genre in 2006. The instrumentation for 15 players is unusual: one on differently pitched flutes, four on brass and the rest on strings, percussion and cimbalom.

All four operas are collaborations with the playwright Martin Crimp, whose texts inspire an unquestionably modern, yet undeniably lyrical vein in Benjamin’s vocal and instrumental writing. His melodies may not be the kind you leave the theatre humming, but they are evidently grateful to sing and play - and beguiling to the ear - even if his musical aesthetic is demanding. Benjamin manages to be anti-minimalist and accessible at the same time. Crimp’s subjects and words may occasionally appear arcane, but in all four operas he tells a story that, thanks to Benjamin’s famous brevity, never outstays its welcome.