"This perfect love, do you believe in it? Could anyone love anyone like that? Can you think of a sadder story?" These questions come from an unlikely source: Euridice, a woman who rarely gets to speak her mind. In The Corridor, part of a double bill commissioned from Harrison Birtwistle by the Bregenzer Festspiele and the Aldeburgh Festival to mark the composer's seventy-fifth birthday, the lady gets her say (seen Aug. 1). The score is Birtwistle at his best: astringent and atonal. David Harsent's libretto startles: Orpheus is rather a wimp, and Euridice is far from the gentle dove we've known for the past four centuries. Peter Gill's minimalist direction allows one to concentrate on the text, augmented by Lorna Heavy's video.

Euridice harangues her saviour, "Look back! Can you hear me?" When he falters, she bitterly observes, "In death, he loved me more." As her vocal line becomes increasingly frenzied, she moves into a kind of shrill Sprechstimme, dripping with venom: "She goes back to the land of the dead where no song is sung." She mockingly speculates on Orpheus' future: "He'll take only boys to his bed. He'll never hear his song as he sings it." Ranting, she repeats the memorable line, "Dance me down to Hell!"

Orpheus, on a raised platform against a video wall of images of Euridice, can not describe his pain: "I gave her back to the dark. There's only one word — Euridice," which he sings over and over in melismas and wild staccati, eventually slowing and dying away, each syllable a long, drawn-out, sustained phrase. Seven members of the London Sinfonietta under Ryan Wigglesworth's taut leadership each got a solo passage.

Elizabeth Atherton, clad in a blood red sheath designed by Alison Chitty, showed a full, lyric soprano but was most effective when executing the bitchier parts of her assignment. While Atherton has by far the showier of the two roles, tenor Mark Padmore offered a profound portrait of grief, particularly in his final, hushed utterances of "Euridice," astounding in his ability to sustain a single syllable sung pianpianissimo with a solid column of tone.

The curtain raiser, Semper Dowland, is Birtwistle's homage to the sixteenth century composer. Its thirteen numbers include one Dowland piece, but otherwise deconstruct the balladeer's style. An orchestra of seven played instrumental intervals danced by the sensuous young Helka Kaski and Thom Rackett (Rachel Lopez de la Nienta supplied the apt, Twyla Tharp-like choreography), but the songs, delivered by Padmore, used only harp accompaniment. The texts reflect another aspect of the rage and sorrow of lost love, all including the words "lacrimae" or "tears." In a memorable moment, a pas de deux was danced onstage, but the video screen showed only one member performing the movements alone.

Ultimately, the piece was a showcase for Padmore's utterly unique gifts, remarkable for his sheer beauty of tone, perfect diction, surprising power, and depth of interpretation. When he repeated the word "pity" six times in a row, each reiteration had a totally different meaning.

LARRY L. LASH

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