'Girl' composer is up with the masters

To choose Maconchy (1907-1994), admired but neglected, was a stroke of brilliance. Had she been born two decades later her name would be up there with Britten and Tippett. But she arrived too soon to benefit from the proper open-mindedness that allows younger women composers, including her daughter Nicola LeFanu, to be treated as equals.

Not that Maconchy wanted special pleading but the condescension towards "lady" or, worse, "girl" composers tediously dominated until her later years. No one had heard of Hildegard of Bingen. The only precedent was Ethel Smyth, the toothbrush-waving dyke suffragette who wasn't everyone's idea of a role model, especially if you were a man and a concert promoter or publisher.

Maconchy is best known for her 13 string quartets. That she wrote operas at all - one of the pair heard last night was pretty racy - comes as a surprise. The Sofa, a surreal farce adapted by Ursula Vaughan Williams from a French text, is set in a wild party - handled with witty insider-knowledge by director Alessandro Talevi. The rakish playboy Dominic (Nicholas Sharratt) gets his comeuppance when a witch-hag (Josephine Thorpe) turns him into a sofa. The voluptuous, droll score, full of sharp pastiche, shows Maconchy with her hair down. Not lady-like and certainly not Ethel Smyth.

In contrast, The Departure, with libretto by poet Anne Ridler, is a tragedy of love and loss between Julia and Mark, superbly sung by Louise Poole and Hakan Vramsmo, with the rest of the ensemble as offstage chorus. Here, Maconchy stirs strong pain and passion while using delicate aural textures, a balancing act characteristic of her musical voice. With minimal staging and great panache, designer Madeleine Boyd and her team made skilful use of the Lilian Baylis Theatre's small but efficient space. The 13-strong orchestra shone. Exciting stuff.

Saturday (0844 412 4300).

Independent Opera: The Sofa, The Departure
Sadler's Wells
Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN