Mark-Anthony Turnage: The Railway Children staged at Glyndebourne
Following close upon the success of his opera Festen, Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The Railway Children, based on the classic novel by Edith Nesbit, is premiered at Glyndebourne on 30 October with a staged concert performance at London’s Southbank Centre on 8 November.
As part of its Autumn Season, Glyndebourne presents the world premiere of The Railway Children, a collaboration between composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Rachael Hewer, based on Edith Nesbit’s classic novel. The new production coincides with the 200th anniversary of the birth of the modern railway, celebrating the connection of communities and ideas across the nation and beyond, and the significant history of this impactful innovation.
The Railway Children – conceived during the lockdowns in 2020 - explores new perspectives of Nesbit’s story, focusing on the mysterious imprisonment of the children’s father and the determination of the mother to uncover secrets and reunite their family. Expanding on the original book’s theme of espionage, the opera moves from the 1905 Edwardian setting into the Cold War era. Turnage and Hewer put action and drama at the forefront of their contemporary interpretation, in a work that remains true to the socially conscious spirit of Nesbit herself.
The Railway Children receives its premiere on 30 October, with two further performances on 1 November. Glyndebourne will also host two performances of The Railway Children for local schools on 4 and 6 November. The opera then travels to London to be presented as a staged concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the Southbank Centre on 8 November.
The Railway Children is the first operatic collaboration between Turnage and Hewer. With music composed in contrasting styles and moods, including ‘spy music’ influences, Turnage’s score drives the drama set out in Hewer’s inventive and modern libretto. Glyndebourne’s Artistic Director Stephen Langridge directs the new production, with Tim Anderson conducting the Glyndebourne Sinfonia, the Glyndebourne Chorus and a full cast of new generation talent.
The Railway Children’s cast includes soprano Henna Mun (2024 Jerwood Young Artist) making her principal debut as Phyllis, former Glyndebourne Wessex Award-winner Rachael Lloyd as Cathy, and Kathleen Ferrier Award-winners Matthew McKinney (2024) and Jessica Cale (2020) performing as Peter and Bobbie respectively. Gavan Ring, Edward Hawkins, James Cleverton and Bethany Horak-Hallett also join the cast.
Mark-Anthony Turnage and Rachael Hewer explain the genesis of the new opera:
What first drew you to The Railway Children as subject for an opera?
Mark: I was very fond of the film back in the ‘70s – it was iconic and had a highly emotional and arresting story. I felt this even more strongly once I read the book.
Rachael: There are very strong characters within the story, and we knew that we could successfully achieve a chamber opera format because of this. The compact structure allowed the selective moments we’ve chosen to lend themselves well to being set to music.
How did you reduce and update the story?
Rachael: The first thing I did was to take the novel and highlight all of the speech, which helped to identify the colour of each character. Because the story was first published episodically in a newspaper it was quite easy to lay out the scenes. Mark and I then selected down the scenes we wanted to include and reduced the libretto further. Stephen Langridge asked us to experiment and see what would happen if we changed the time and setting of the story and that inspired us to develop and finalise this version.
What themes from The Railway Children still resonate strongly today?
Mark: For me it was the treatment of the children and also the real poverty in the story which made it seem very modern.
Rachael: The poverty was a big feature when we started writing the opera because it was the time footballer Marcus Rashford was fighting for free school meals to address child hunger. Another theme, in the original novel, was the idea that mothers are expected to remain passive while the father is the hero, whereas we’ve zoomed in on the character of the mother and made her more three dimensional. We’ve also explored the relationships of parents and children – what we consciously and subconsciously try and keep the children away from but what they absorb and pick up anyway. We were interested in how the children in the story do the right thing even if they are scared. And this spirit of adventure needs to be returned to children today. The Railway Children wouldn’t be what it is without the adventure, intrepidness and love of exploration that Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis demonstrate.
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Mark-Anthony Turnage will be travelling to Helsinki next spring for the Finnish premiere of Festen presented by Finnish National Opera in the award-winning production by Richard Jones, opening on 27 March with ten performances under the baton of James Hendry. The composer has created a Festen Suite for orchestra, adapting music from the opera, which is premiered at the Koncerthuset in Copenhagen on 5 February by the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alondra de la Parra.
> Further information on Work: The Railway Children
Image: Glyndebourne