Julian Anderson Thebans, English National Opera

Extract

In basing his first opera on Sophocles' Thebans trilogy, heard at the ENO on 3 May 2014 in a condensed three-act version, one act per play, Julian Anderson shows his colours as something of a classicist. No postmodern pastiche nor quasi-medieval dramatic innovations for him, as we've seen from near British contemporaries Mark-Anthony Turnage and George Benjamin, nor the technological and dramaturgical explorations of other recent ENO productions, from Two Boys to Satyagraha to A Dog's Heart. No, this is a composer with his feet firmly planted in the grand operatic tradition of classical subjects and traditional telling.