Opera brings Sarah Kane's harrowing final play to brutal musical life.
Philip Venables has adapted 4.48 Psychosis, Sarah Kane's most personal work, into a raw opera that sets nearly all of Kane's original text to music. The production runs at the Linbury Theatre in London and features six female singers and the Chroma Ensemble, conducted by Naomi Woo.
Kane wrote the play between 1995 and 1999, her final work before her death by suicide in 1999. The piece was first performed posthumously in 2000. It confronts the clinical depression Kane struggled with throughout her life. The Royal Opera and Guildhall School of Music and Drama commissioned Venables to compose the opera, which debuted in 2016.
Venables realises Kane's 24 disjointed sections through a score that combines minimalist licks, prickly synth-pop and baroque influences. The libretto shifts between poetic abstraction and sharp exchanges between a patient and a psychologist. The ensemble navigates themes of depression, isolation and medication choices.
According to The Guardian's review, the singers and orchestra rise to "brutal musical onslaughts and anarchic orchestrations" with fearless performances. Naomi Woo conducts "with arresting immediacy." The score is described as "raw" and "imaginative," matching the intensity of Kane's original writing. Kane revolutionised British theatre with five provocative plays written in that five-year period, and Venables, known for his own "in-yer-face" approach, meets that legacy with compositional rigour.