{"id":118380,"date":"2019-10-09T13:44:56","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T13:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/2019\/10\/09\/a-matter-of-livestream-and-death\/"},"modified":"2023-10-03T13:53:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T17:53:48","slug":"a-matter-of-livestream-and-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/2019\/10\/a-matter-of-livestream-and-death\/","title":{"rendered":"A matter of livestream and death"},"content":{"rendered":"
Philip Venables\u2019s first opera, 4.48 Psychosis<\/i>, was enthusiastically received at its 2016 premiere in London, and New York audiences were no less welcoming earlier this year at the Prototype Festival, where it had its U.S. premiere. Based on Sarah Kane\u2019s trenchant and final play, which is about her depression, the opera had a winning foundation: the play itself served not just as creative stimulation, though clearly it provided that, but also, with minor trimming, as the opera\u2019s text. Venables\u2019s latest opera, Denis & Katya<\/i>, <\/i>seen at its world premiere by Opera Philadelphia on September 18, was not so fortunate. For it, Venables teamed up once more with the director Ted Huffman (from 4.48 Psychosis<\/i>) to produce a work about the two eponymous Russian fifteen-year-olds from the provincial city of Pskov who, as was reported at the time, faced parental opposition to their relationship and holed themselves up in a rural cabin. After they were tracked down by Katya\u2019s parents, Denis shot Katya\u2019s mother in the hip with an air gun; an armed standoff with the police followed that left the couple dead. The police maintained it was suicide.<\/p>\n