Opera is great at dealing with the big themes - love, sex, death, that sort of thing. Throw in a lively dose of toilet cleaning, and you’ve got Mark Simpson’s “Pleasure”.Soprano Lesley Garrett plays Val, a toilet attendant in a gay club. She’s the “Belle of the bogs! Lily of the Lavvie!” says drag queen Anna Fewmore (a wonderfully scabrous Stephen Page). The hedonistic clubbers pour out their woes to the motherly Val. But when she meets the troubled young Nathan, who reminds her of a man who raped her many years previously, her own anguish comes to the fore.It’s a dazzling showcase for Garrett, 61, who has only recently returned to opera after concentrating on crossover and light entertainment. She creates a touching and vulnerable portrait of a woman haunted by the past, and she sings with increasingly electrifying intensity as the confrontation with Nathan gets closer. Kudos to her sense of realism and great elbow action too, for she also does an admirable job at cleaning the loos.Warm-voiced Timothy Nelson manages to be both threatened and threatening as Nathan, and tenor Nick Prichard and Stephen Page offer fine support. Nicholas Kok conducts ensemble Psappha with liveliness and precision.The 75-minute work is a promising operatic debut for Simpson, 27, who has a flair for grateful melodies and arresting orchestral textures. He handles atmosphere with a secure sense of pacing too. On the downside, the characters all sing in a one-note-per-syllable manner which doesn’t help differentiate them, and this weakness is compounded by Melanie Challenger’s libretto which employs a uniformly poetic style for everyone. “I slipped inside a seed of pain,” sings Val. Nathan’s life is, “Nothing but an unlit, lifeless garden.” Anna Fewmore tells us that she “made an art of decay.”Tim Albery’s production, set around a giant neon sign, is a straightforward affair. It keeps the plotting and characterisation as clear as can be, even if it doesn’t quite suggest the world of bitter hedonism and extravagance hinted at in the libretto.Still, it’s a treat to see Lesley Garrett back on form, and a new operatic voice given a chance to shine. Can’t wait to see what Simpson comes up with next.“Pleasure” (a co-production with Opera North and Aldeburgh Music) is staged by the Royal Opera at the Lyric Hammersmith. It will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on June 11.
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