THE LIGHTHOUSE
By the early 70s, Maxwell Davies’s music began to shift toward modern expressionism and dramaturgy, motivated in part by his move to the Scottish Orkney islands to get away from the noise and distractions of London. Soon after moving to his cliff-side house, Maxwell Davies finished a piece that he felt signaled this new direction. Immediately after, he had a rather unusual experience that he recently recounted to me. “The clouds come very low there, and I walked outside on one of those extraordinary winter afternoons where the sun disappears into the sea and there’s a marvelous kind of green, luminous light everywhere. There were clouds drifting down from the hill over the house, and they were a bright orange color–with the extraordinary phenomenon of the sea closing in over the descending sun. One of these clouds just came across and enveloped me, and I was suddenly standing within this bright orange-yellow world inside there. This was quite extraordinarily dramatic, especially having just sat five minutes before finishing a piece which I thought was taking off in a radically new direction.”
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It was inevitable that Maxwell Davies would want to somehow evoke the awesome beauty of his new environment with his new style. Which is exactly what he has been trying to do ever since with several pieces about the customs and legends associated with the region, notably his recent An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise, which he conducted here last season with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under the auspices of Chamber Music Chicago. But in his chamber opera The Lighthouse, Maxwell Davies has tried to capture another aspect of northern Scotland.
Although The Lighthouse had its Chicago premiere last week by Chicago Opera Theater, Maxwell Davies was not able to attend because he was in the midst of conducting a two-week festival of his music in London. I suspect if he had had even an inkling of the spectacular quality COT would bring to the work, he might well have been truant for at least part of the festival.
The Lighthouse is not for everyone and may be far too complicated or disturbing for those whose idea of opera is lighthearted romance and mindless, silly plots as an excuse for beautiful singing. But for those who revel in gripping psychological drama and unusual plot twists as well as challenging contemporary scores this is ideal.
