Space is too short to celebrate in full the week's other premieres, each singular in style but abundant in rewards. James MacMillan's chamber opera Clemency, played by the expert and busy Britten Sinfonia strings, conducted by Clark Rundell, was as densely coloured and detailed as the Russian Orthodox icon which in part prompted it. Its starting point is the Old Testament story of Sarah and Abraham before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. One can imagine that MacMillan and his librettist, Michael Symmons Roberts, wrote in a white heat of intensity.
The mood never lets up for the work's 50-minute duration. It ends too soon – scarcely a typical response to new opera. It's the best MacMillan score I have heard, full of muezzin-like chromaticism and, in the string style, a touch of Bartók, but firmly his own. Katie Mitchell's direction, Alex Eales's designs and the cast led by Janis Kelly and Grant Doyle were all excellent.
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