With such a dizzying schedule, composer Jen Hartley’s new music drama felt at times like a breathless fell race more than a picturesque browse round local history and mystery, but hectic and risky operatic schedules are Cumbria Opera Group’s stock-in-trade, as their high-calibre team, led by the indefatigable Joe Davies, turn delivering world-class opera to Cumbria from myth into reality.

Dry ice gave us mist, raised umbrellas the rain, and as Kirkby Lonsdaler Anna Cooper’s rich, powerful mezzo-soprano voice sang us through the storylines, the wide-eyed Cumbria Youth Chorus hung on every word, all maps, torches and waterproofs as we were led into the blurred landscape of local legend.

There were great props – the long scarf-like ‘curtain’ of Aira Force waterfall and a chorus member wearing a big plastic water bottle on his head come to mind – and the rustic set of green drapes, camping chairs and tree-stump stools gave a reassuring basecamp feel to the ever-shifting dramas. 

The witch scene, in which soloists and chorus all became grumpy farmers with thick Cumbrian accents as they rounded on the scapegoat turning the cows’ milk sour and other such sorcery, was nicely placed light relief, and the Long Meg scene of garlanded dancing daughters watching their mother turn to stone was the most poignant point of the opera.

Jen Hartley’s score was rich, elastic and electric; Jonny Danciger’s stage direction smooth; Kendalian soloist Eleanor McIntosh’s warm, heartfelt soprano won us over in her various roles, such as tragic Emma of Aira Force; Carlisle baritone Jonathan Hill was a mean and meaty Dunmail and Pendragon; but the stand-out performer was Anna Cooper, whose force of charisma, both in voice and stage presence, led the whistlestop tour of this mythical county safely out of all danger in the end. 

Matthew Connolly, Classical Source