The Outcast at the Philharmonie

Fascinating evening at the Philharmonie’s Grande salle Pierre Boulez, experiencing Olga Neuwirth’s The Outcast (after Moby Dick by Hermann Melville) for the first time. Written around 2008-10, revised in 2012, this is ambitious work for soloists, choruses, orchestra, ensemble, electronics and integrated video which was often impressive, notably in its evocation of storm at sea, and poignant glimpses of ‘the whale’. According to the excellent pre-concert talk by Laurent Feneyrou, a church in Venice with associations with the sea was sampled to enable the recreation of certain acoustical properties in the concert hall. The video effects were mesmeric. The ideas around mixed narratives, dual identities and time shifts, were truly fascinating. There were moments of incredible beauty and meld with the electronic sounds. It was an interesting model in producing a form of opera with static singers (they didn’t move and weren’t off the book).  The solo treble was extraordinary. On a first listen I struggled to appreciate the relationship between source’s literary structures and the musical forms, and I found the mix of amplified spoken voice and singing sometimes broke the dreamlike atmosphere. The experience was less dramatic than I was expecting and the tension was not always sustained. So this is a fine and very thought provoking work, and I was very glad to have been able to see it, but, for me, not as perfect as Orlando.