Opera - Tobias and the Angel

I arrive at St John’s Sub Castro mid morning on Monday expecting to do a quick interview with one of the tenors of the opera Tobias and the Angel during a break from rehearsal, and leave. But they’re running late, so I am treated instead to two hours of stop-start action, as director Michael Moxham takes the cast through a couple of scenes, with Kubrickian precision. While there is an element of frustration to this, as I see a busy morning ebb away, it does convince me of one thing. Lewes is about to play host to an exceptionally high-quality piece of community opera.

‘Tobias’, by Jonathan Dove, was first performed in 1999, and is fast becoming a rare beast, a modern opera with a bit of staying power. It is known as a highly complex piece of music, which is populist enough in tone to have a broad appeal without alienating the aficionado. For this production, (Lewes is the first date on a fortnight’s tour taking in seven venues all over the county), The New Sussex Opera have got together a strong cast. The director, for example, is currently involved with a performance of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House, and recently directed the same composer’s Die Walkure to great acclaim at the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall. Most of the singers, including the Indian lyrical tenor I’ve arranged to talk to, Anando Mukerjee, are no strangers to venues such as Glyndebourne, Covent Garden and Wigmore Hall. Sitting in the second pew back in St John Sub Castro, with the action unfolding in front of me, I feel increasingly privileged to have such a close view of the process, while the director takes the cast back time and again to introduce minute changes in the way they perform.