Short and sweet

Somehow I missed A Nitro at the Opera when it was first put on at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Studio in 2003. Last week it was revived for four performances. The title — the most irritating feature of the evening — means nothing to me, but it is a collective one for songs and music-theatrical pieces by nine young black composers, some of them making their first essay into classical music.

The evening began with ‘Arias’, six songs by six composers, performed by Mary Plazas and Rodney Clarke, Stephen Higgins at the piano. Plazas is a singing actress of great intensity, and, standing on the empty stage, she was the most dramatic presence of the whole occasion. Dainty Drysdale’s ‘The Journey’, inspired by Eminem’s ‘’97 Bonnie & Clyde’, was likewise the most impressive item, or it may just have been Plazas’s blazing performance. I haven’t the space to mention the three short operas, none as long as 20 minutes, or even their composers.