One of the troubles with opera is that since creating and putting one on involves so many people many composers write as if for eternity, or at least for a sizeable segment of it. It’s been a great boon in recent years that some companies, notably Tête-à-Tête, have encouraged the creation and production of operas-in-progress and of short pieces which enable composers and librettists, and the mainly young performers they recruit, to find out what they might be good at. It’s a great boost for the spirits of the opera-goer to realise that, if he is being bored rigid by a piece, there is only 20 or so minutes of it.
ROH2 at the Linbury Studio has its own interesting variation on that, Operashots, in which established figures, but not necessarily in opera, are invited to write a piece which makes no great demands on staging, but which is mounted by seasoned performers.
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