How To Make An Opera About 9/11
Tom Service asks: ‘An opera set in the World Trade Center on 9/11? How is that possible? How can opera attempt to dramatise the thousand-fold tragedies of the twin towers? I’ll be honest. My first reaction to hearing about Tansy Davies’s “Between Worlds” was one of incredulity. Isn’t the whole notion of an opera set high on the north tower, above the impact zone of the first plane, recreating the last minutes of lives that ended in some of the most terrifying circumstances it’s possible to imagine, an operatic risk too far, which could trivialise the tragedy and fail to honour its world-changing impact?’
