Sounds from the sweatshop: Marxist Chillwave and Dialogues des Carmélites

Classical music perhaps wouldn’t be everyone’s medium of choice to shout about issues, ideas and beliefs but two recent events made a strong case for why it should be.

By Alexandra Coghlan

(Photo By Carmelite nuns in France, 1904. Dialogues des CarmAclites tells the story an order of Carmelites executed during the French Revolution. Photo: Getty)

Marxist Chillwave; Dialogues des Carmélites
Second Home, London E1; Royal Opera House, London WC2

If you wanted to raise your voice in art – to really shout about issues, ideas and beliefs – how would you do it? Make a film, perhaps? An installation? A play? The chances are that classical music wouldn’t be your first response. But two recent events made a strong case for why it should be. Church and state, economics, ideologies, faith and social cynicism all came under scrutiny in performances in which musical abstraction was no barrier to provocation.