Scott Ordway The Outer Edge of Youth Amy Broadbent (soprano), Emily Marvosh (contralto); The Thirteen/Matthew Robertson Acis Productions APL 30001 81:32 mins
Did American composer-librettist Scott Ordway draw inspiration from Attar of Nishapur? His ‘choral opera’ The Outer Edge of Youth(2020) contains echoes of the Sufi’s celebrated The Conference of the Birds in its journey from innocence to awakening via parables delivered by talking birds. The language is rhetorically archaic, and the setting recalls oratorio in its detached, semi-dramatic characterisation and dialogue: yet Ordway’s narrative is secular, and strongly topical. Representing ‘the inner lives of boys … [who are] desperately searching for beauty’, Sebastian and Nicholas find themselves able to understand forest birds, who teach them about human love and empathy.
Supported by The Thirteen and a similarly excellent trio of cellos plus double bass under director Matthew Robertson, soprano Amy Broadbent and contralto Emily Marvosh are fervent as Sebastian and Nicholas respectively. Yet, beautiful as they undoubtedly are here, mature female voices sound odd in the roles of the boys whose words, moreover, possess a sophistication that belies their supposed youth. When Sebastian declares ‘this endless longing overflows … Even as I am a child, I see a wider world,’ there’s an uncomfortable sense of the adult composer behind him – and Ordway’s message is not always helped by a tendency to languorous sentimentality.
Steph Power