“The story unfolds as a series of interrogations between a border guard and ‘two’ (for the shifting nature of their responses makes them universal) travellers. Though some of these encounters are wittily handled, all are fraught with confrontation. There is a lugubrious inevitability about the score, which unfolds from an imaginatively handled fantasy on one note. All three singers excelled themselves, especially Robert Raso, whose portrayal of the guard was both unnerving and sympathetic—one moment the angry protagonist, the next just another innocent caught in the system.”

“Soosan Lolavar, a British-Iranian composer, nearly fell foul of Donald Trump’s first travel ban. She eventually got through so as to complete the opera she was writing with librettist Daniel Hirsch. Their subject? The problems facing travellers trying to enter the United States.

With the aid of Jessica Medenbach’s video projection and Stephen M Eckert’s succinct staging, ID, Please proved powerful, moving, even amusing. Lolavar’s music, both vocal and orchestral, found the right blend of menace and compassion, and the three singers were exemplary. A future classic? You just never know.”