Fire in My Mouth review – Wolfe’s multimedia oratorio tells its tragic story with focus and power

Royal Festival Hall, London
Marin Alsop, the Philharmonia and three outstanding choirs gave the London premiere of Wolfe’s work about the deaths of 146 workers in a New York garment factory fire in 1911

On Saturday 25 March, 1911, Greenwich Village’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire. One hundred and forty-six garment workers – mostly recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women – died, many prevented from escaping the flames by stairwells and exits locked by the management.

The disaster is the catalyst for Pulitzer-winning composer Julia Wolfe’s 2019 multimedia oratorio Fire in My Mouth: the third in her series of large-scale works drawing on the history of the American worker, and a punchy opener to the Southbank Centre’s autumn season.