Music review: BBC SSO & Martin Brabbins, City Halls, Glasgow

A distinguished performance from the SSO shone a positive light on Michael Tippett’s space-age parable, New Year, writes Ken Walton

BBC SSO: New Year, City Halls, Glasgow ***

Few expected a fifth and final opera from an ageing and ailing Sir Michael Tippett in the late 1980s, but he produced New Year, a madcap and frankly bonkers space-age parable whose plot – aliens in flying saucer meet dysfunctional earthlings – is as barmy as its pump action score. Since its premiere production, created in 1989 by Peter Hall, it has lain dormant.

Until Saturday, that is, and even then in essentially a concert performance by the BBC SSO under conductor Martyn Brabbins, with a helpfully passionate cast, the rehabilitated BBC Singers as animated backing, and a unfussy, utilitarian semi-staging by director Victoria Newlyn. Such a practical approach was implemented to serve the first ever commercial sound recording of the piece by record label NMC, due for release in early 2025.

That will be valuable documentation. For as much as Tippett’s music here is a delinquent collision of 20th century stylistic appropriations – elements of reggae, rap and 1980s electronica constantly snapping at the feet of a more conservative avant-garde – there is constant fascination as to where it goes next. Brabbins’ sharp-witted direction, and the SSO’s distinguished performance, shone a positive light, filling many conflicting anomalies with expectant fascination.

Yet, what’s it all about? In essence, it’s a utopian fantasy, the troubled issues besetting hero Jo Ann, and her Afro-Caribbean foster brother Donny, finding release through her extraterrestrial sojourn to a future world. In truth, and minus the vital visual thrill of the core dance numbers, this was a hard theatrical nut to crack.

Even with such a committed cast – Rhian Lois’ alluring Jo Ann, Alan Oke’s ringmaster-like Presenter, Susan Bickley’s matriarchal Nan, Rachel Nicholls’ lustrous Regan, and Ross Ramgobin’s laddish Donny, among others – full comprehension was challenging. A full staging could shed the necessary light.