Blue Electric

About

This 2018 work-in-progress production of Blue Electric was directed by multi-Academy Award-winning film director Hugh Hudson as part of the Tête à Tête Opera Festival. The atmospheric staging was created by designer Laura Albeck with associate designer Sara Stanton. Tom Smail’s score was noted for its texturally complex, post-Romantic character, with a sound world some critics compared to Benjamin Britten. The production explores intergenerational trauma, family dynamics, and the search for identity. In the composer’s note, this short version was conceived to set the scene for the completed opera by establishing core relationships: an awkward teenage protagonist, her overpowering father scarred by a horrifying past, and a gentle, peacemaking mother. Across its 40 minutes, the piece maps a terrain of loss, love, and survival. The result is a concentrated, theatrical portrait that invites expansion into a full-length opera.