Conor Mitchell on Abomination: A DUP Opera

His works have been performed by the Ulster Orchestra, Irish National Opera and Cologne Opera, and have appeared at festivals internationally and venues including the National Theatre and our own Royal Festival Hall. In May 2023 his creative endeavours returned to our buildings in the form of his award-winning Abomination: A DUP Opera.

Fusing opera with drag, cabaret and political satire, the opera centres on, and takes its name from, a scandalous live 2008 radio interview by Northern Irish politician Iris Robinson, in which she referred to homosexuality as an ‘abomination’. Performed in a high-impact, multi-disciplinary style by The Belfast Ensemble, Abomination redefines what a modern opera can be, and what it can say.

Ahead of its arrival at the Southbank Centre, we caught up with Mitchell to find out a little bit more about the work.

What is it important for audience members to know, in terms of the context of this work?

The opera is based on a scandalous radio interview by Iris Robinson, a prominent member of Ian Paisley’s DUP and wife of the first minister. In it, she described homosexuality as ‘an abomination’. This was on the day after a gay man had been beaten close to death in Northern Ireland.

What prompted you to write an opera on this topic?

I’d been asked to create a short closing event for Outburst – a Belfast Queer Arts festival – in 2018. Then, gay marriage in Northern Ireland was the number one issue. I decided to make a little piece that expressed the most opposing view – the DUP’s. Worse, we’d sing it. People thought I’d lost my mind. But when we opened, there were queues not just to the door, but around the whole building. 

I’d always wanted to do this, write a work where the score expressed the opposite of the text; difficult, questionable words and ideas wrapped in seductive, playful music. And as a political writer, it allowed me to comment without saying a word. There’s a theatrical electricity in that, a need for music. The piece grew into an opera.

The interview at the core of the work took place back in 2008 – what is its continued relevance and repercussions today?

The gay community had been largely marginalised for decades, and so when a prominent politician made those statements live on air, it was a final straw. The backlash marked the end of ‘open season’ on queer people, and issues of violence, discrimination and toxic language became hyper visible. It was a landmark in social politics that sparked change. But the fact remains, the DUP are still the largest party in the country. And Iris was, and is, not alone in her views. Gay people here are still in a state of ‘recovery’.

‘Fusing opera with drag, cabaret and political satire’ is an unusual description. Is it one that might make Abomination: A DUP Opera appeal to those who are new to opera?

The most exciting audience is a mix of extremes. When I make something, I presume the audience have either never seen opera or know Tannhäuser backwards. It forces you to pilot them – intelligently. I’ve always liked that newcomers to opera get as much from this as old hands. The most common response I’ve had is ‘I’ve never seen an opera, and I want to see more’. I think that’s because the audience are being guided carefully through the score; the melody providing a path they can follow – ultimately to dissonance. They evolve as they listen, seduced. Opera is mesmeric!

But I also wanted to ‘queer the form’; bring those hurtful words directly into the world of queer performance, not sit grandly outside it in the rarefied world of operatic opulence and commentary. Drag, cabaret – these are queer, direct languages that matter. They inform, politicise and educate. They connect. As a writer, I think you have a duty of care to your audience. Guiding them, connecting with them and levelling with them is crucial. 

What were your musical influences when writing Abomination, and how do you see it fitting into the tradition as a whole?

I’m a big fan of wearing musical masks – balancing truth with artifice. Here, I was determined to play with ‘the review’ as a form. Parody. Satire. Mask. Abomination owes a lot to review, to ‘the routine’ or ‘skit’. I try to blend that device with camp operatic jabs – Offenbach even gets a look in – and skits wrap around the central drama; the interview. In that sense, it’s two simultaneous operas. One true. One not. Will it fit into the tradition? I doubt the tradition cares what a working-class queer Catholic from Belfast thinks. I’m more excited about work that pushes form, changing the dramatic language of the genre, expanding tradition. 

Although centred on a difficult topic, the work also has a lightheartedness to it. How do you bring together these different facets?

I think that’s the joy of the piece. Look, these words are barbed, often uncomfortable. To add discomfort to the theatre itself would, I felt, elevate and empower them. Instead, I wanted to reclaim, queer, charge and diffuse them. That meant finding points of repose in the drama. Safety valves. And comedy is a self-defence weapon gay men sharpen with each generation.

Where would you like to see Abomination go from here?

Part of me would love to perform the piece in Parliament… or The Vauxhall Tavern. Whichever is cleaner.