The Gospel According to the Other Mary at the English National Opera: Review

Described by its composer as a “Passion oratorio”, last week’s world staged premiere of The Gospel According to the Other Mary  is virtually a religious happening. Adams draws on two pivotal episodes from the New Testament, and relates them to the present day.  Act One centres on the raising of Lazarus and Act Two on the crucifixion of Christ.

Adams has teamed up, as before, with visionary artist/director Peter Sellars, who also wrote the libretto for this extraordinary work, first performed in concert in Los Angeles in 2012. The curtain rises to designer George Tsypin’s set of billowing canvas tent, skilfully lit by James F. Ingalls.  On each side of the stage are security wire fences. In the centre cardboard boxes are used as platforms, tables or sepulchre.   We see the Biblical Mary and Martha as sisters who run a hostel for homeless women in Bethany.  Mary (Magdalene) empathises with the shrieks of a woman suffering drug withdrawal in jail.

Sellars’s libretto is based on Old and New Testament verses from the King James’s version of the Bible, interspersed with texts from, among others, Primo Levi, Louise Erdrich and Hildegard von Bingen.  The soloists taking the roles of Mary, Martha and Lazarus  are given emotional  counterparts by individual dancers who shadow them. The words spoken by Jesus are performed by three countertenors singing in unison.  The chorus in its restless mutterings expresses the volatile mood of the crowd in Jerusalem.

The raising of Lazarus is true theatrical drama.  As his shrouded form emerges from the sepulchre, it’s as if his spirit returns to the dead body.  The story of Lazarus serves as an augury to Christ’s own death and resurrection, which takes place in the dramatically tighter second act.  

Adams’s score is richly harmonic and accessible, ranging from pulsating rhythms to meditative lyricism.  He adds to orchestral woodwind, strings and brass, unusual instruments such as Chinese gongs, dulcimer and glockenspiel. As in his Nixon in China, there is a virtuoso dance, this time by the Angel Gabriel.  It’s a show-stealer, performed by young African-American street dancer Banks who was discovered by Sellars in a New York metro subway doing the Krump - a dance “to release anger, aggression and frustration in a non-violent way.”  

Mezzo Patricia Bardon as Mary Magdalene is at her peak, in darkly melodious tone.  As bustling sister Martha, Meredith Arwady possesses a true contralto that can plunge to amazing depths.  Russell Thomas as Lazarus has a rich and resonant tenor.  The countertenor Seraphim, Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley, blend exquisitely as  the voice of Jesus. 

Some elements sit uneasily in the updating, such as the second act arrest of the women, which makes a clunky link with the civil rights movement led by Mexican American Cesar Chavez, campaigning for migrant workers’ rights in the 1970s.  In the midst of the raising of Lazarus, the name of Winston Churchill rings incongruously.

The commitment of cast and orchestra under the young Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro override these quibbles, however. The Gospel According to the Other Mary shows that when contemporary opera throws aside modish minimalism it can deliver as satisfying an evening as the great classics.  

John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary at the English National Opera, The Coliseum, London WC2 (Tickets: 020 7845 9300/eno.org; £12-£99)