WAG Tale

Tannishtha Chatterjee is no football fan who would stay up to watch Rooney play. But the 27-year-old has just performed in an opera that captures the phenomenon of WAGs and the madness that envelops football. The opera,Ingerland,concluded at the Royal Opera House,London,on Saturday.

The off-beat musical is directed by Jocelyn Pook,who had composed music for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. This is Pook’s first foray into the world of opera. “When she asked me to sing I was apprehensive since I had never performed before an opera-watching audience,” says Chatterjee. “But since I was confident about my singing abilities,I decided to give it a shot.” The actor earlier worked with Pook in her 2006 film,Brick Lane,where she sang the title track in Bengali. In the opera,Chatterjee has improvised thumri and dadra songs to match the pace of football. “I’ve used variations of Holi songs,” she says,“since I thought it came closest to football’s hysteria.”