BENJAMIN Into the Little Hill
George Benjamin, Composer
Hila Plitmann, Soprano
Susan Bickley, Mezzo-soprano
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor
Michael Cox, Flute
Nederlands Kamerkoor, Choir
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
"...Plitmann is soft and seductive as she tells of music’s power to “unravel the clouds”" - Opera News
Into The Little Hill is based on the Pied Piper story, allowing audiences an immediate entry point into the opera's dramaturgy. But Crimp's re-telling simultaneously updates the story, with it's politicians, photographs, and limousines, and opens up further mythic dimensions to the narrative. The drama of Into the Little Hill is concisce, clear and simultaneously ambiguous, even chilling. Benjamin says, 'Martin's text is hard-edged, formal, and hyper-condensed'. The reason for it's musical and dramatic success is Benjamin's unerring feeling for expressive characterisation. Each layer of Into the Little Hill's score is immediately identifiable, from the Crowd's baying cries of 'Kill them' rightat the start of the piece, to the rodentine scurrying of the rat's music, and the Mother's lamenting grief in the last scene.