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HIDDEN VOICES: Queer Artists in Exchange

 
Richard Beck Review by Richard Beck 3 Published: 17 Nov 2025 The Space Theatre Show Dates: 13 Nov 2025-14 Nov 2025

Founded this year, QVIA’s debut project, HIDDEN VOICES, is an ambitious work that blends narrative with music in an exploration of queer elements in the lives of six famous composers.

An exciting and original first work

In most cases we know these people by their music and in some cases perhaps a few things about them, but the challenge for QVIA was to highlight the lesser-known private lives of Franz Schubert (1797-1823), Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1883), Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) and Benjamin Britten (1913-1978) and their love for members of the same sex, when such feelings generally had to be kept secret and, for the men, any sexual activity was illegal. It is their correspondence and other personal writings, however, that exposes their secret and through which we are made aware of their true feelings and inclinations.

Staged under the vivid red-arched ceiling at the end of The Space on the Isle of Dogs, as part of the Volia Festival, the colour palette is picked up in the radiant costumes of pianist Judith Valerie Engel and actor Simon Christian, with mezzo-soprano Neelam Brader dressed in a white sleeveless two-piece. Combined with the setting and grand piano there is certainly the air of classical performance or drawing-room entertainment about this production.

The piano pieces and songs from the respective composers are interwoven throughout the narrative; some more well-known than others, but each reflecting the moods of the composers in coming to terms with their situations. There is a feeling, however, that the clever concept outweighs the delivery. While this is not officially a work in progress, there is ample room for further development and refining of the production, perhaps in the choice of pieces and the clarity of transitions from one composer’s story to the next. Costumes, projections and background information might make for greater clarity in transitions from one character to another. That letters were never intended for performance also poses its own difficulties.

Nevertheless, this is an exciting and original first work in terms of the company’s potential to create an idiosyncratic style of theatre.

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The Blurb:

We all know their names, we know their music, but so little is known about the queer lives they lived. Who was the man on Britten’s side? What was really going on at the ‘Schubertiaden’? To whom did Chopin dedicate one of his famous waltzes? Was Tchaikovsky really in love with his nephew? Who broke Francis Poulenc’s heart? How did the fierce lesbian Ethel Smyth make her mark in this male dominated world? Hidden Voices answers all these questions and gives you a rare insight into the hidden (love) lives of these celebrated musical geniuses. Hear carefully selected letters and other personal writings alongside their world-famous music. Expect secret lovers, scandalous affairs, melancholic homosexuals, one hell of a woman and the true inspiration behind some of the greatest works of classical music. In the words of Benjamin Britten: Tell me the truth about love! Hidden Voices does just that.