"It Put Me in a Feverish Dream": Philip Venables Turns Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis into a Shattering Opera

A decade after his first work, the stage adaptation of *Sarkh Keen*, he returns to the Royal Opera House. The composer recalls the feverish, sweat- and tear-soaked beginnings of the journey and how it changed his life forever. "I didn't sleep a wink, but I worked without stopping in a crowded, dark, drowsy cabin, reading and annotating a book, and angrily no."

In January 2015, I attended the New Opera Festival on an overnight flight back from New York. I didn't sleep a wink, but I worked nonstop in a crowded, dark, sleepy cabin, reading and annotating a book and frantically taking notes on my laptop. As if in a fever dream, my mind was spinning with text, music, dramaturgy, theater.

Those six hours at night were some of the most creative moments of my life. The book was 4.48 Psychosis. The annotations became the blueprint for an opera. Sarah Kane's text had opened something in me, passion, a flood of ideas. I could barely keep up, jotting down every impulse, every fantasy, as my mind wandered.

I came home with a thud, back to real life. That year was tough: a messy, long breakup and the threat of bankruptcy and losing my house, victim to unruly builders. I developed a bleeding stress rash and had insomnia for the first time in my life. I was not composing. time passed

By the end of the summer I was able to pull myself together. I dusted off those flight notes, made spreadsheets (always!), counted down the days I had to write each scene, and got to work. The opera was written at breakneck speed in six months, something like a trance. My personal life was full of tension, but opera and Kane's world became a refuge, an escape, and a joy. Writing was going on.

I followed my plan almost without deviation. I mostly wrote the first simple scenes, out of order, in similar groups: patient-doctor dialogues, heptad series, positive and negative affirmations. Little by little, a piecemeal opera emerged, until only the most challenging scenes remained. Then I returned to the text. It had an uncanny ability to reveal more ideas, more music, like layers peeled back. I reminded myself to follow my instincts. I followed the sage advice of fellow composer James Weeks: "You want people to come out afterwards and say, 'That wasn't opera.'

Kane's text was a libretto waiting to be arranged and full of music

Opera practice was hard. I turned in the score late (something I've learned never to do again) and inadvertently wrote something that didn't fit a standard production: a bunch of complex group vocals that had to be memorized together. A large number of recorded materials for preparation; Scenes that require millisecond accuracy between light, sound and video. The material was difficult on every level, and the creative team, producers and actors rolled up their sleeves and tackled the challenges with seriousness and dedication. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to those heroic actors and producer, Sarah Crabtree.

On opening night in May 2016, our noses were so close to the grindstone that no one really thought about how to receive it. We were simply relieved and amazed that we had reached the stage. Therefore, the impressive reception of the audience, the feeling of extreme release from tension, the euphoria caused by the sweat and tears shed along the way.

A number of critics noted that the text in the opera is clear and "seems to come from everywhere". This was my proudest achievement. Kane's text was a libretto waiting to be set, full of music. Apart from the chunks of dense poetry, there are song forms, conversations, excerpts from psychological tests, prosaic medical notes, descriptions of dreams – and throughout, the darkest humor. I tried to find musical equivalents: love songs, musical humor, percussive dialogues to understand the triviality of psychiatry, contrasted with deeply expressive and passionate operatic moments. I threw as many ideas at it as I could and the text became cross ... it opened the floodgates of imagination. A text like this is a rare and precious thing.

Over the following months, I began to process the experience. Apart from boosting my confidence, the success of 4.48 started another creative period: my close collaboration and friendship with director Ted Hoffman. We wanted to make more as soon as possible. Every day we talked about new projects, watched shows, shared links, read, fantasized, critiqued. We applied for residency, wrote contests, talked to everyone we could. Since 4.48 we have composed three operas and a handful of smaller pieces for singers, instrumentalists, choirs and even schoolchildren. Undoubtedly we will make more, it is joyful.

Sarah Kane has taught me more about opera than any other opera.

Reflecting on this as I prepare for the 10th anniversary revival at the Royal Opera House makes me realize how Kane's text has forever shaped the way I think and make my work. These days, I understand better those inner instincts that led me to his text and guided me in composing. I can now articulate the questions that this project provoked, questions that I still ask of every new project: What is the relationship between the character and the performer? Who is talking and with whom? What does it mean to sing or speak? How can we create a framework for performers to tell our story directly to audiences without artificiality? How to create community on stage? Above all, I cherish Kane's creation of a theater of imagination, not a theater of spectacle. Tell, but don't show.

Kane has taught me more about opera than any other opera. It saddens me that more than 25 years after the publication of his text, formal postdramatic or experimental works rarely grace the stages of British opera. We are stuck with dramatization, representation and suspension of disbelief. There are many other ways to skin a cat.

While the opera has had several other performances and productions in the United States, France and Germany, it has been a delight to return to our original production and watch a new cast tackle it anew – and also underscore the unique achievement of the original cast. Alongside, I'm writing and directing my first piece of musical theater without Ted, The Alonetimes, in collaboration with Jennifer Walshe, which has its UK premiere on October 19 at the Schwartzman Center in Oxford. A whole new adventure and back to where I started, all in the same week. I am incredibly lucky, and I owe it to that meeting with 4.48 Psychosis, all those years ago.

4.48 Psychosis is at the Linbury Theatre, London from 17-25 October.