In 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart went missing during her her solo journey around the world, her fame so great that her disappearance would’ve coloured the childhood of Laurie Anderson, born 10 years later. Updating a piece first performed 24 years ago, Amelia attempts to revivify this primordial tale of human flight, compressing diaries, telegrams and biographies into a narrative orchestral song cycle, circling around the missing adventurer’s last six weeks in the sky.
Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno concoct agreeable tension between the suite’s electronic and analogue elements, and occasional ornamental support from Anohni is welcome. It’s all rather restful. Perhaps too restful. The staccato sentences Anderson murmurs in impassive contemplation of Earhart’s astonishing expedition (“Waves of air. Feel the wind blow”) are frustratingly jejune.
The project’s biggest failing is its artless shifting of perspectives between anodyne reportage and first-person journalling, leaving it neither compendious nor immediate enough. As the darker, desperate hours close in amid the chaos and confusion of The Wrong Way and Fly Into the Sun, Amelia finally takes off, but it’s a long runway to get there.
