Newsnight Review discussed an opera based on Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

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(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

ROSIE BOYCOTT:
It works rather brilliantly. I didn't like the first half so much. I felt it was slightly monotonous. It was hard to hear what the chorus was about because the music is actually so loud. I heard a lot of people in the interval saying, "Gosh, we would really like a tune." But in the second half it totally starts to fly and you get engulfed in the terror that Offred is living through, and the sense of the nightmare of the regime. I thought the way they did the sex scenes, reproductive scenes, when literally in the book the handmaiden lies between the legs of the "barren" wife and the husband has sex with her, you do feel her terror. At times, it was confusing, and difficult to watch for someone who hadn't read the book. In the book, it's very clear that, in her earlier life, before the country was taken over, that she had a husband and a child, and these get lost. I thought that was slightly muddled, but overall it worked very well. It's an incredibly timely tale. It's interesting, listening and reading stuff that Margaret Atwood has written about it. People were dismissive of the whole concept of the Handmaid's Tale.

LAWSON:
It came out of Reaganism originally?

BOYCOTT:
Yes. But 16 years on there are a lot things that lend that way. In middle America, they teach the creationist theory in school, in which Eve is the evil woman. In China, you are allowed only one child.

LAWSON:
But America isn't such a theocratic dictatorship, is it?

BOYCOTT:
No, but it's worth considering that a whole lot of things could go back. If you look at fundamentalist worlds - I lived in Kuwait in the '70s when women were sent to university and encouraged not to wear the veil. In 30 years, it's gone right backwards. Fundamentalism of different types is creeping into even Western countries in attitudes. It was interesting to go to an opera that's so thought-provoking. It's an amazing book that can translate into virtually every media.

PAUL MORLEY:
I wished it was in Danish. I felt, being in English, there was a sense we should have understand it. I would have had the masochism go even more. It's for masochists who like opera for the pain. It goes in a certain order. It's staged in an impressive way. It's sung in a very efficient way. The libretto is a very efficiently done thing. What lets it down ultimately, for me, is the music. I suppose it's got to be that way. It's hyperexpressionistic. There are little dabs of minimalism, occasional references to pop, but it's so merciless that the pain that is laid on - what succeeds most is what comes from Atwood's book and at the bottom of it is the music. The music might be the thing that stops it becoming a classic. For most of the time, I felt because the music was so merciless, I found myself day dreaming...

LAWSON:
There was a beautiful duet between the two versions of Offred, then and now?

MORLEY:
Yes, but because it's in English, the way they sing English words is always so absurdist. You can't get away from it. If it had been Danish, you might have given it the benefit of the doubt. Opera doesn't suit English. I thought it was like a musical version of Prisoner Cell Block H at the edge of Baghdad. The idea that it might become a classic opera, I'm not sure because of the music.

BILL BUFORD:
I found it insufferable. The most depressive theatrical experience in years. Rosie mentioned listening to people in the intermission. I did the same. I heard things like, "Darling, you are not meant to enjoy it." Another said, "Look at it this time, it's a once in a lifetime experience, thank God." I thought it was arrogant, fundamentally. I thought the music was abrasive and the singing followed a monotonous pattern of dip and shriek. Finally, after an hour and 15 minutes, a baritone came on stage, but then he did (IN A DEEPER VOICE) dip and shriek, dip and shriek. I thought, I wanted to say, 'Wake up guys. Modernism is over.' The novel has moved on, art has moved on, everybody else has moved on. You don't have to assault your audience and tell them, "It's art."

LAWSON:
I disagree, it's not John Adams but not much is. It was fantastically compelling narrative, I thought.

BOYCOTT:
The narrative holds it up. Paul is right when he says the strongest thing there was the book. That's what held it together. I agree with Bill, the music was very difficult. One of the things heard in the interval was, "Please let's have a tune." I never thought I would be so relieved to hear Amazing Grace. You came away on the press night with a CD, I have to say, it is not a CD I would find myself playing.