As Laurent throws him overboard, Camille bites Laurent’s neck, producing a wound that will never heal.Guilt and ghosts finally do it for Th?se and Laurent, their hoped- for bliss beyond reach, but not before Mme Raquin, a paralysed invalid, learns the terrible truth. She is unable to communicate it to her domino-playing friends, but Th?se and Laurent take matters into their own hands, committing double suicide at her wheelchaired feet.Zola recognised the story’s grisly potential, making his own stage adaptation, and there were plans for an opera, never realised. Marcel Carn?ade a film based on the book in 1953, starring Simone Signoret, and more recently, the composer Michael Finnissy made an attempt at setting it to music, and several versions have been seen on film – the BBC did a mini-series with Kate Nelligan and Brian Cox.Raquin fever has broken out again: on Broadway, Thou Shalt Not, the musical, directed by Susan Stroman, has opened (and is soon to close – perhaps deservedly, for being updated to a New Orleans bar); Kate Winslet and Judi Dench are gearing up for a new film version; and Dallas Opera, in co-commission with Montreal and San Diego, has just staged the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Th?se Raquin.Picker, in his mid-forties, is one of America’s most prolific composers This is his third opera in five years. His first, Emmeline – devoted also to the misfortunes of a woman (she inadvertently marries her son) – was rapturously received when staged at the Santa Fe Opera in 1996. The ubiquitous Francesca Zambello directed Emmeline, and it is with her that Picker works again.Zambello’s greatest achievement towards Th?se Raquin may have been her introduction of composer and lyricist, Gene Scheer, to Picker, for in his reworking of Zola’s text, Scheer has produced a libretto of unusual fluency and intelligence. Picker’s opera is in two acts: the first, in three scenes, ends with a spectacular drowning of Camille – although the bite goes for nothing.

Act Two, in eight scenes, begins in the Raquin family home, where it also ends. It is not a happy place.Raquin has some superficial similarities with Emmeline, but Picker’s music over five years has developed significantly. The score is of far greater sweep and complexity, bound by plainly audible leitmotivs that frequently appear in varied guises. In Raquin, Picker confidently uses set-piece arias, duets, trios, and even a septet of busy fluency that, in its “domesticity”, recalls Britten’s Albert Herring.

His music hovers between tonality and atonality, clearly conveying emotion and emotional change – Act II is far more dissonant than Act I – so underlining the plot with clarity.But the plot has been gutted: Mme Raquin’s a pussy cat; Camille’s no weed; Laurent no seducer. Picker, in fact, disclaims the book: “The characters in my opera are not the same characters in the book They are my take on those characters I’m using them to express myself. I’m not Zola’s scribe, translator or spokesperson.” So why confuse by calling the opera Th?se Raquin? And why encourage forests of pre-premiere publicity that convey nothing of the emasculated plotline when what emerges is something dramatically between La boh? and Madame Butterfly?Veteran soprano, Diana Soviero, in the role of Madame Raquin, while able still to muster some powerful high notes, is given no scope for her acting ability as a harmless old woman anchoring no gruesome plot, while bass-baritone, Richard Bernstein, as the lusty Laurent (regrettably shorter than Th?se) has a gravelly voice, powerful if unsubtle. The tenor Gordon Gietz, in the role of Camille, far from a wimp, soars magnificently in Picker’s high, elegant writing.The smouldering role of Th?se is sung by the young British mezzo, Sara Fulgoni, whose looks, voice and acting are utterly persuasive. She alone of the cast on the first night appeared convinced and convincing – without doubt a major talent.

The smaller roles of the Michauds and Monsieur Grivet were expertly taken, Picker most sympathetically attending to these minor characters.Marie-Jeanne Lecca’s sets and costumes uneasily mix realism with metaphor: the opening split-level open-plan house set on a vast revolve looks more New England than Paris, while the banks of the Seine sport discarded detritus – a half-buried bicycle, a bedstead – in an urban setting. The full panoply of watery, ghostly effects is well executed in Mark McCullough’s lighting.A second performance confirmed that the orchestra, under Dallas’s music director Graeme Jenkins, suffered first-night nerves in Picker’s demanding score. However, the first-night audience, perhaps surprisingly in the world of JR Ewing, ex- pressed its appreciation palpably.. Winona Ryder, the actress most recently known for her role as a troubled young woman in the 1999 film Girl, Interrupted, was arrested in Los Angeles yesterday and charged with attempting to steal clothes worth thousands of pounds from Saks Fifth Avenue, an expensive fashion store. She was later released on bail set by the judge at $20,000 (£14,000).