Dove Jonathan: Siren Song

Siren Song, by the British composer Jonathan Dove, is a chamber opera about the longing for love and the susceptibility to deception, which here receives its world premiere recording. Dove is best known for his operas, including Flight, which also received its premiere recording on Chandos and was applauded by the critics. The recording was made live at performances that took place at the 2007 Grachtenfestival in Amsterdam, where Dove was the composer-in-residence. The Siren Ensemble, specially formed for these performances, consists of ten young, talented musicians, most of whom have appeared at the festival in previous years. The Australian tenor Brad Cooper, who recently made his ENO debut in The Coronation of Poppea and will shortly appear in La traviata for the Nationale Reisopera in The Netherlands, takes the lead role of Davey. Henk Guittart, best known for his work as the violist of the Schoenberg Quartet, conducts. The opera is based on a bizarre, true story. A young sailor on HMS Ark Royal exchanges letters with a beautiful and successful model personally unknown to him, yet with whom he becomes infatuated. Over time a romantic and passionate relationship develops, yet a meeting is increasingly difficult to arrange and Davey proves to be the victim of an elaborate deception. The composer writes, ‘When I first came across the true story which inspired Siren Song, I knew it had to become an opera. What initially appears to be a simple story of a sailor duped by a con-man turns out to have surprising depths… it is a story about the power of the imagination, and how we invent the people we love’. The Almeida Opera in London liked the idea, and commissioned Dove to write it. In 1994 Siren Song played to packed houses, received rave reviews, and attracted considerable attention. For Opera Now Rachel Connolly wrote, ‘The closely-woven, almost minimalist texture of Siren Song never once lacks dramatic momentum. The musical language is immediately accessible, belying, one suspects, a complexity of rhythm and harmony… If I was planning on introducing a beginner to opera, this is one I would choose’, while Alexander Waugh, in the Evening Standard, had this to say, ‘Siren Song is decidedly the most enjoyable contemporary opera I have seen for a very long time’. Of this production, Dove writes, ‘I was thrilled with the Grachtenfestival performances, staged with eloquent simplicity by Jim Lucassen and beautifully conducted by Henk Guittart. And I am delighted that, thanks to Chandos, Diana can once more be heard luring unwary sailors to their destruction’.