Art: Greek fire still burns bright

For Greek – based on Steven Berkoff’s Oedipal plot and adapted into Estuary English vernacular by librettist Jonathan Moore and the composer himself – is an opera that made its mark as a dissenting child of its time; a brutal depiction of Thatcherite Britain, set against the violent unrest of the miners’ strike and inner city riots of the 1980s.

Eddy, the dysfunctional hero, swears like a trooper, suffers police brutality, is generally angry and frustrated with his lot, and in a final note of defiance hollers “bollocks to all that” at his own funeral. Not for nothing has it been compared to an explosive episode of EastEnders.

When I saw this new semi-staged production by MTW’s Michael McCarthy at the Cheltenham Festival in July, and despite the civil disturbances then rocking Greece (of all places), it had all the built-in safety factor of a period piece. The message – trumpeted through Turnage’s gutsy jazz-fuelled score, pounding rhythms and the odd fearsome football chant, was loud and clear. But it wasn’t happening on a street near me.

Of course, things are quite different now. With the television pictures of this month’s English riots still fresh in our mind, this week’s Edinburgh performances of Greek (tomorrow and Friday at the Traverse Theatre) suddenly have the potential to be as uncomfortably close to reality as when the Edinburgh Festival hosted the opera’s UK premiere in 1988, just two months after the world premiere in Munich.

Not to miss a trick, MTW’s artistic team have already replaced the screened backdrop of 1980s stock riot footage with the shocking images we all saw a few weeks ago. And although Turnage could never have predicted this turn of events, it’s something he generally feared and spoke about when we met before July’s Cheltenham performance.

“All these things that happened in the 80s: the miners’ strikes, strikes generally and lots of violence on the street – sadly that’s all coming back,” he warned. “It’s rearing its head again, so this opera doesn’t seem out of place.”

All that may sound typical of the Essex boy who made his name as classical music’s punk equivalent in the 80s, who created an urban sound for the concert hall sculpted from jazz and rock as a means of expressing his anti-Thatcher politics, but who nonetheless found acceptance as a serious musician, albeit through notoriety, in what was at the time a snooty business.

Not least among the high politics of opera, where he has enjoyed significant working relationships with English National Opera, writing The Silver Tassie after Sean O’Casey’s anti-war play in 2000, and with the Royal Opera House, which recently premiered his latest opera, Anna Nicole, based on the tragic story of American Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith.

He was only 26 when his mentor and friend Hans Werner Henze commissioned Greek for the Munich Biennale, bringing with it immediate international recognition, but turning to opera at all had not been part of the plan.

“I wasn’t a fan,” he says. “I’d seen La bohème, maybe even Peter Grimes, but that was about it. I didn’t grow up with opera, and felt a bit uneasy about being in an opera house. I hate dressing up, but you had to or you looked out of place. I’d rather blend in and not make a statement.”

That last comment is astonishing, but it reveals Turnage’s willingness these days to speak more honestly about himself. There’s a softer side to him that is at odds with the public persona we were once presented with; even a willingness to put the record straight on the way he exploited his notoriety.

“I can’t say I didn’t play up to it a bit,” he says. “I was a bit naïve and really got tarnished with the things I said, particularly about being poor and wanting to get out of my home situation. A lot of that upset my parents, especially when it was implied that there was no culture in the house; that it was rough and there were no books.

“It wasn’t that I was ever misquoted, but I think the Press just wanted to see me as the mouthy Essex boy with a very different background to the likes of fellow composers George Benjamin and Ollie Knussen – both of whom are my friends – so it was a nice little story that never did me any harm”.

In fact, Turnage’s parents were both keen amateur musicians and introduced him to Beethoven. “They were also very religious. A lot of interesting stuff was thrown at me,” he now admits.

But maybe that’s not surprising, given that Turnage is now in his fifties and, as we chat, seems as relaxed as any contented guy with his own family: a wife (cellist Gabriella Swallow), two young kids, and a career that easily caters for their needs.

Having just completed a successful residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, life is good. He has two commissions in hand for the London Symphony Orchestra, and after his first ever encounter with ballet for Paris Opera – a reworking of his classic Blood on the Floor – is now working on more dance projects for Sadler’s Wells (with Turner prizewinner Mark Wallinger) and Covent Garden. He also teaches composition at his old alma mater, the Royal College of Music.

As for politics, he claims his interest has diminished, although there’s still, he says, “no way in a million years I would ever vote Tory”. “I’m very disillusioned with it all actually. There’s something really not impressive about the way politicians are just feathering their own nests, and I can see why people are voting less and less.”

“You’ve got this nationalism thing going on in Scotland. I’d be much more interested in reading about that than I would about Cameron or the other guy – Clegg, isn’t it? I can’t even remember his name; he’s so wet.”

The “enfant terrible” may have simmered down. But at least we have Greek as a reminder of the riotous days when Turnage gnashed his teeth.

lMusic Theatre Wales’ new production of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek is at the Traverse, Edinburgh, tomorrow and 2 September, tel 0131-228 1404 or visit www.traverse.co.uk