BBCSO/BBC Singers/Brabbins: UnEarth review – Wolfe faces the climate crisis head on

Barbican, London
Julia Wolfe’s oratorio, here in its UK premiere, is evocative and striking, but its thudding final movement felt heavy-handed

How to approach the issue of climate breakdown in art? To do so obliquely risks minimising its urgency, but go head-on and you risk hectoring or slipping into cliche. In its UK premiere, Julia Wolfe’s oratorio unEarth ultimately tilted towards the latter, although it made some striking impressions on the way.

Produced by Wolfe’s collective Bang on a Can, unEarth was first performed in 2023 in New York. Wolfe developed some of its text with a local youth choir, who sang in the premiere. Here it was the Finchley Children’s Music Group on stage, ranged behind the BBCSO and conductor Martyn Brabbins along with the men of the BBC Singers and National Youth Voices. All sang from memory, and all were amplified – as was Else Torp, singing a solo line in a lean high soprano that dovetailed into the orchestral sounds.