THE HOUSE TAKEN OVER

Stephen J. Mudge | Opera News, 10.13

(...) the Domaine du Grand Saint Jean on the Puyricard plateau is dominated by a ruined sixteenth-century château, chosen by the festival as the venue for this season's world premiere, The House Taken Over , by Vasco Mendonça (...) The atmospheric venue, with its raked seating against a wall of the château, could not have been more propitious for a work that deals with a haunted house. (...) Mendonça's work is refined and subtly orchestrated for a chamber ensemble of strings, woodwind, brass and percussion, with an interesting use of flugelhorns and imaginative combinations of the timbres of the thirteen players. This world of worrying glissandos and disturbing percussion (...) was impressive for its refinement (...)