Haydn's Creation, Ambika, review - Telegraph But this is to reckon without the gifts of director Patrick Kinmonth. The only set he needed was a newly constructed raised walkway, bisecting the audience. The only materials he needed were human bodies in motion. These were provided by members of the chorus, the five soloists, plus nine actors and dancers. In the gloom of the opening Representation of Chaos, the writhings of bodies represented inert matter. As light dawned, they appeared to be woken by Gabriel, played and sung with lovely radiant guilelessness by Mary Bevan. When Haydn referred to the firmament, the chorus's pointing fingers, tracing a slow arc, raised it up in our mind's eye. Later, when the "winged fowls" came on the scene, a single feather stood in for them. This represented wings, flight, and finally a quill pen (in the hand of David Stout, vocally impressive as Raphael). Only one of Kinmonth's ideas contradicted the music, but in such a thought-provoking way one couldn't object. As the chorus and orchestra rejoiced at the creation of Man, a baleful-looking figure placed an apple in Gabriel's unwilling hand, which she displayed to us with a meaning look. The sin that would lead to Man's fall was lying in wait.