MacMillan: The Sacrifce

Opera no 169

MacMillan: The Sacrifice 

Soloists

Welsh National Opera

James MacMillan’s Confessions of Isobel Gowdie https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/12/macmillan-confessions-of-isobel-gowdie.html was one of the standout pieces from last year’s project so I was keen to hear an opera of his as part of this year’s project. It didn’t have quite the same impact on me as the Confessions. Partly that might be because my listening was a bit interrupted and spread over several sessions. The ghost of Britten haunts the piece. There were many passages which could have been by Britten and the use of interludes to separate out the scenes is very reminiscent of Peter Grimes. Indeed just as Britten made a concert piece out of the four sea interludes MacMillan has turned some of the interludes here into a concert piece.

I felt that MacMillan’s main interest was with the orchestra - there are some fabulous orchestral sounds in the score - rather than in the voices. Parts of the vocal writing were, I thought, uncomfortable and in the loud sections tended to be a bit ‘shouty’. Perhaps the best part of the opera was the final ensemble after the death of the main protagonist where everybody comes together with a plea for peace - that really did make quite a strong impression. As I say I perhaps didn’t give this opera the full chance that it deserves - perhaps I will go back to it sometime and give it another try.

That ends this exploration of some contemporary (and near contemporary) operas. It is not really my area of expertise and I found some of it hard going. But I am glad that I persisted because if would have been quite wrong for this project not to to beyond the 1970s, which is more of less where the cut off point had been. And it did introduce me to Benjamin’s Written on Skin, which I think will make it into the list of most memorable operas when I come to sum up this year’s project.

I set out to listen to 100 operas this year but as the year has gone on I have found myself more and more drawn into the project and now, with a week to go before the end of October I am up to opera 169, which means that I should double my target. For the year of the year I am not going to follow any particular theme but just try and fill in as many gaps as I can. There is still plenty to go at!

Benjamin: Written on Skin

Opera no 167

Benjamin: Written on Skin

Soloists

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

George Benjamin 

This was a genuinely impressive opera - one of the most notable in this part of the project. I don’t think that I have heard any of George Benjamin’s music before. Somehow he got overlooked in last year’s project but I am sure that I will now want to explore more of his work.

What impressed me particularly was the very idiomatic vocal writing. There has been a tendency in late 20th century and beyond opera to think of voices in almost instrumental terms and to treat them as an adjunct to the orchestral texture. That can produce some remarkable effects of course, as I have commented on several times in the project, but it can also created some ugliness and insensitivity to the words. Here by contrast I felt that that opera was really about the voices and the text. That’s not to say that there weren’t some remarkable orchestral effects - the use of the viola da gamba and glass harmonica were particularly notable, but it was the voices that mattered. Benjamin was happy to write real melodic shapes and to allow the use of voices in genuine ensembles. The duet between the soprano and counter tenor at the end of Act 1 was sensuous and absolutely gorgeous. It reminded me, perhaps unexpectedly, of Purcell. Not that it sounded anything like Purcell, but the setting of English speech and the pure beauty of the vocal line did seem to stretch right back to Purcell.

This was a real discovery. Nothing about it seemed forced or done purely for effect. It was a work of great depth and invention yet at the same time seemed completely simple and straightforward. The ability to do that is a sign of a composer at the very top of his game.  

Maconchy: The Sofa

 Opera no 166

Maconchy: The Sofa

Soloists

Independent opera

Dominic Wheeler

This is one of a trio of short operas by Elizabeth Maconchy. The only other peice of hers that I have heard is the overture Proud Thames https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/search/label/Maconchy which I quite enjoyed in last year’s project.

The obvious influence here is Britten- It was written about 15 years after Peter Grimes had given huge impetus to the development of English opera. I found the opera quite diverting without it making much of a lasting impression on me. There were some delightful parodic passages at several points recalling the spirit of Rossini and Offenbach but much of it seemed a little run of the mill. The plot is quite racy for the 1950s - the leading man is turned into a sofa because of his bad behaviour and can only be resurrected when a couple make love on the sofa!  I suspect that it is quite fun on stage and will make a greater impression than it did purely as an aural experience.

Turnage: Greek

 Opera no 165

Turnage: Greek

Soloists

The Greek Ensemble

Richard Bernas

I found this hard going and not really to my taste. Turnage has a reputation for writing harsh hard-edged music with lots of percussion and saxophones. To some extent it is Birtwistle taken to another degree. But there are also strong roots in popular culture, from rock to musical hall.  I have to say that I found the more lyrical music much easier to digest than the relentless heavy passages.

But I didn’t find it easy to get into the right frame to appreciate the opera. I think that is was the overdone mock cockney accents and faux working class accents (complete with copious four-letter words) which seemed to me quite false - especially performed with singers who, it seemed to me, were putting on an act rather than genuinely being part of that milieu. To me the whole thing seemed rather dated, which is odd for one of the most recently operas in the project . Perhaps it works well on stage as a piece of music theatre, but as a listening experience is was not for me.

Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus

Opera no 164

Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus

Soloists

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Andrew Davis

I’ve wanted to listen to this opera for a long time so I put aside some time to listen to it an act at a time with a score to follow.  It is an extraordinary work - certainly the most complex opera I have ever heard and probably one of the most complex of all time. 

it is difficult to know where to begin. The opera is on a vast scale with a big cast, several of whom share roles of the characters in different incarnations. The orchestra has no bowed strings but a huge complement of wind (3 contrabassons!) percussion and plucked strings, including electric guitars. The vocal and choral parts are virtuosic and goodness knows how people went about learning them to perform the work live on stage. Bittwistle’s music is famous for its hard-edged very aggressive sound and while there is plenty of that there are also many quieter passages with quite fascinating vocal and orchestral textures. Overlying all of this are the very important electronic effects which at times merge with the orchestral sounds but in several places are heard on their own for several minutes.  There is some controversy over the extent to which Birtwistle was wholly responsible for the electronic music , which was realised by other collaborators at IRCAM in Paris.  I found the passages where the electronics were integrated into the orchestra fascinating but I couldn’t really make much of the purely electronic interludes.

For a vast and complex piece like this a single hearing can only scratch the surface. I am certainly very glad to have heard it but I need to hear it several times to really start to get into Birtwistle’s sound world. That won’t happen this year - lots more composers to cover before the year is out - but perhaps next year. I’v very glad that I finally got the chance to listen to it property.

Weir: Blond Eckbert

Opera no 163

Weir: Blond Eckbert

Soloists

English National Opera

Sian Edwards

Judith Weir is a composer that I much admire. I’ve been lucky enough to play in several of her orchestral works and her opera A night at the Chinese Opera https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/11/weir-night-at-chinese-opera.html was one of the highlights of last year’s project. This opera didn’t make quite such a strong impression but I certainly thoroughly enjoyed it. Weir has a real mastery of the orchestra and has a  clear, clear sound world which is very distinctive. Even if I had heard this opera blind I think that I would have identified the composer without too much difficult. The opera is broadly conversational in style though with some very lyrical music for the bird, who appears from time to time. The end of the opera was particularly striking with long repeated melismatic phrases in the voice forming a background to the final wind down.

Weir is clearly in the operatic tradition of Britten and Tippett - how could a late 20th century English composer not be - but Stravinsky is certainly an important influence. She is a important voice in the development of late 20th century opera and I am pleased to be able get to know more of her work.

Adès: The Tempest

 Opera no 162

Adès: The Tempest

Soloists

Royal Opera House Orchestra

Thomas Adès

This is now the start of the next phase in this project - some near contemporary operas.

I don’t think that I have heard any of Adès’ music before so this was a new experience. It took a while for me to ‘tune in’ to the style but once I got into the piece I really enjoyed it. The style is broadly tonal and it clearly by somebody who grew up in the world of Britten and Tippett. What is most impressive is the lyric writing - particularly the long scene for Caliban in Act two and the quintet in the third Act - the courage of a contemporary composer in being prepared to write in traditional forms - such as a love duet complete with the characters at one point singing in octaves - in the 21st century. I was also impressed with the rhythmic energy of much of the piece. There is a tendency in post war opera for the vocal lines to get bogged down in rather sterile and shapeless arioso but Adès largely avoids this and this does help in driving the drama forward. The orchestral writing is constantly inventive with some wonderful evocations of the spirit world. I can’t leave the opera without commenting on the stratospheric coloratura writing for Ariel - the setting of Full Fathom Five (Shakespeare’s words are glossed rather than quoted directly) is one of the most extraordinary things that I have heard in a very long time. I just wonder what on earth the singer must have thought when she saw the music for the first time. 

Dibdin: The Ephesian Matron

Opera 111

Dibdin: The Ephesian Matron

Soloists

Opera Restor’d

Peter Holman

Dibdin wa the composer of Tom Bowling - that lovely song which features in the Sea Songs which are part of the traditional last night of the proms. He had a large output of songs and of theatre music generally. This little opera was a gem. The music has no complexity or profundity but it exuded charm and good humour. Particularly notable were a patter song for the maid, which could almost have come out of the Savoy operas and a lovely love duet which had an irresistibly catchy tune. It is a pity that Dibdin didn’t establish an enduring English tradition of comic opera - the history of opera in England might have been quite different had he done so. As it is this opera only survives in a vocal score and the version here was orchestrated by Roger Fiske in the 1980s. I have seen comments which suggest that his scoring had over elaborate wind parts but it all seemed quite idiomatic to me.

Arne: Alfred

Opera no 103

Arne: Alfred 

Soloists

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Nicholas Kraemer

We cross the channel to England but in musical terms we are in Italy. Heard cold I think that most people, myself included, asked to identify the composer would say Handel. This opera is in English as opposed to the Italian of Handel\’s operas, but the idiom is the same. Much of this piece could have been dropped into one of Handel’s English pastorales like Semele or Acis and Galatea and it wouldn’t have seemed out of place. Ultimately it lacks Handel’s genius in making everything wholly memorable, but this was undoubtedly a high quality score. There are some issues about the exact make up of the score and there are various versions. This recording was described as being of extended excepts, but from what I can make out it contained most of the important music from the score.

Alfred’s main claim to fame is that it ends with Rule Britannia. It is rather ironic that such a patriotic piece is found in an Italianate musical context but it does work - heard like this it has charm and wit rather than bombast and it much the better for it.

Maxwell Davies: Taverner

Opera no 82

Peter Maxwell Davies: Taverner

Soloists

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Oliver Knussen

This is a quite extraordinary work. I was aware of it and have some vague memories of the publicity for the first performance: it created quite a stir not only for its subject matter and use of renaissance instruments but also for the extreme modernity of the score. For an English composer to be writing such music in the 1960s (and some of the work was started in the late 1950s) was astonishing. What strikes me more than anything is the confidence with which a still young composer (he was in in his mid 30s when it was produced so much of the music was written in his 20s) mastered his material. The orchestral writing is  completely assured. It must have been an enormous challenge to the orchestra at the time (it sill is hair-raisingly difficult) but it does really pack a punch. Similarly the choral writing has a big impact, especially in the long polyphonic lines in the big ensemble in Act 1.

The solo vocal writing is perhaps harder to appreciate. Some of it seemed to me quite arid in the manner of the least effective bits of late Stravinsky, though elsewhere is was compelling.  Perhaps the most astonishing part of the score is the very end. All of the frenetic activity and hard edges disappears and we are left with a long slow passage for strings which doesn’t compromise in its harmonic language but does seem to hark back in some ways to the traditions of English string writing and beyond that to renaissance polyphony. 

Altogether this was a really good discovery. It was certainly challenging to listen to at times and I am glad I had a score to help me, but I am so pleased that at last I have got round to listening to it.

That’s the end of this part of my exploration of 20th century British opera: I will come back to it later in the year but now I will move on to something much easier on the ear - some of the lighter 19th century French repertoire.

Bennett: The Mines of Sulphur

Opera 81

Richard Rodney Bennett: The Mines of Sulphur

Soloists

Glimmerglast opera

Stewart Robertson

To be honest this didn't leave much of an impression on my either way. I didn't actively dislike it but then again there was very little here that grabbed my attention. It wasn't unattractive in a post-Bergian sort of way but nothing really stood out. It seems to be well paced as music drama and I imagine could be very effective on stage - it had quite a run of early performances after the London premiere but purely as something to listen to I didn't find it engaging. Perhaps only the last few moments - when the cast realised that they are doomed - stood out, but by ten it was too late, both for them and for me!

Tippett: King Priam

Opera 80

Tippett: King Priam

Soloists

London Sinfonietta

David Atherton

I’ve know the music of Michael Tippett since school days - the 2nd string quartet was the first piece of his that I remember hearing. I tried to hear as much of his late music as possible as it came out - I saw The Ice Break at Covent Garden and The Mask of Time at the Proms. I also recall listening to the first broadcasts of String Quartet no 5, The Triple concerto and The Rose Lake. I think that The Midsummer Marriage is one of the great 20th century operas - as for New Year, which I listened to in last year’s project, the jury is still out.

That leaves King Priam. Rather to my surprise I realised that I had never heard the whole work before - the beginning was very familiar as was the war cry at the end of the 2nd act, but much of the rest I had read about and seen the musical examples in the various books about Tippett but hearing it was a new experience.

Priam is the work in which Tippett moved away from the lyricism of The Midsummer Marriage and the concerto for double string orchestra into something much more hard edged. The influence of Stravinsky, especially Agon, is very apparent both in the actual sound of the music but also its mosaic structure. I found it a fascinating work. To me some of it didn’t work. There was too much instrumental ‘doodling’ which didn’t really add anything and the impossible string writing passagework associated with Hecuba seems almost embarrassing. But the material which does work - which is in truth most of it - makes a huge impact. The very start is one of the most arresting openings in all opera and some of the war-like music has real dramatic intensity. But the reflective music also has an eloquence all of its own - I’m thinking here about the song Achilles sings with guitar accompaniment and the wonderful trio for the three main female characters in Act 2.

When I was a student it was almost an article of faith that posterity would see Tippett and not Britten as the major British composer of the second half of the 20th century. That didn’t happen and I can’t see that it ever will. Tippett is such a wildly erratic musical personality but at his best he does belong at the top table. I’ve been rereading the fascinating biography of him by Oliver Soden which is full of insights into a very rich life. Tippett almost dropped completely out of the repertoire after his death but there are signs , mainly though recordings, that there is something of a revival of his music. Let’s hope that that continues.

Walton: Troilus and Cressida

Opera 79

Walton: Troilus and Cressida

Soloists

Opera North

Richard Hickox

The only music from this opera I knew was the big soprano solo At the Haunted End of the Day, which featured in the wonderful documentary of the same name broadcast in the 1980s celebrating the life and work of Walton. 

This was another opera written in the shadow of the operatic successes of Benjamin Britten and it has never quite established its own place in the repertory. Walton tinkered with it several times, including creating a revised version for mezzo soprano in the title role to enable Janet Baker to perform the role. This record restores the soprano tessitura. The music is vintage Walton - it has the swagger of Belshazzar’s Feast and the warm lyricism of works like the violin and viola concertos.  There is real dramatic flair to the score. The correspondence between Walton and the librettist Christopher Hassall has been published and is absolutely fascinating. Hassall had written the book for several of Ivor Novello’s musicals and Walton gently (and sometimes not so gently) coaxed the author into an understanding of what makes a successful opera libretto. 

The score probably did seem a little old fashioned to the critics of the time who often seemed in thrawl to Britten. One can understand that but now with the passing of several generations we can see that both composers in their very different ways had written operas of the highest quality. It does seem odd that Troilus and Cressida has not established itself as part of the 20th century British operatic tradition.

Berkeley: A Dinner Engagement

Opera no 78

Berkeley: A Dinner Engagement

Soloists

City of London Sinfonia

Richard Hickox

I was not much impressed by the Berkeley symphony I listened to in last year’s project https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/search/label/Berkeley so didn’t have particularly high expectations of this opera. It is quite a short piece (I hr) using the same forces as Albert Herring, That makes sense as it was a commission of Britten’s English Opera Group. For I while I though that the music was pretty inconsequential in a sort of sub-Britten way, without that composers astringency, but as the work went on I found myself more and more engaged with it. Berkeley famous studied with Nadia Boulanger and there are certainly strong French touches throughout the score. But perhaps Stravinsky is the stronger influence - we are certainly not far away from the world of The Rake’s Progess, which was first performed only a few years after this work. There was a highly attractive duet about two thirds of the way through the opera which really made a strong impression.

It must have been difficult for composers of the time to deal with the huge impact that Britten had on post-way opera in this country. Everything seems to exist in his shadow. But I think that this work is strong enough to bear the occasional revival - I certainly found it more enjoyable that the Berkeley symphony I listened to last year.

Tovey: The Bride of Dionysus

Opera no 77

Tovey: The Bride of Dionysus

Soloists

Ulster Orchestra

George Vass

Tovey is very familiar as a writer on music - his Essays on Musical Analysis are still worth reading even though they are now rather dated in style -  but although I knew that he composed I had never heard a note of his music.

I suspected that Brahms would be a major influence and that is undoubtedly the case - indeed the prelude to the opera is almost pure Brahms in places. But there was more to this piece that pastiche Brahms. There were some elements of late 19th century opera - French and German - and the English choral tradition was never far away. This recording was of extracts only, but there was enough here - over 60 minutes of music - to get a sense of what the whole piece might be like. It was obviously by a high competent musician who was in command of his material but I didn’t detect much of a individual voice or oa sense of overall coherence - just a series of quite stylistically varied individual pieces.

The notes with this recording tell us that the opera was considered for performance in the early seasons at Glyndebourne. Those plans never same to fruition - partly because the scale of the work was too large for the small theatre - and it seems that there have been no serious attempts to stage the work again. I suspect that its time has passed. So, another interesting byway of English operatic history.

Brian: The Tigers

Opera no 76

Brian: The Tigers

Soloists

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Lionel Friend

This was a quite extraordinary work.  Its history is quite extraordinary in itself. Brian wrote it during the First World War but only finished the orchestration about 10 years later. The vocal score was published (presumably at the composer's expense) but the work was never performed and the full score was presumed lost until it turned up in the basement of a popular music shop in the 1970s. The opera was recorded by the BBC in the 1980s and I recall hearing a little of it at the time, but this was the first time I had head the whole thing.

It is very difficult to place. It doesn't sound like any British music of its time - but it doesn't belong to any operatic tradition at all. It is a mix of quite modern sounding orchestral effects, some comic elements and some material based on popular songs such as 'has anybody here seen Kelly?'! Somebody described it as almost Ivesian in places and I can see that but the composer who most came to mind when I was listening to this was Tippett - some of the sounds could have found there way into a Tippett opera and indeed the whole surreal atmosphere of the piece, inspirited by a libretto written by the composer, did seem positively Tippettian at times. I really enjoyed listening to this music even though at times I did scratch my head wondering what on earth was going on.

I don't suppose the opera will ever be staged - the vast resources -vocal and orchestral (5 tubas!) would prevent that, and I can't see that it would be a big box office attraction other than an novelty. But I do wonder what would have happened had the opera been performed in the 1920s - just possibly it could have been a sensation and perhaps set opera in English off in a very different direction. 

Delius: Fennimore and Gerda

 Opera 75

Delius: Fennimore and Gerda

Soloists

Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra

Richard Hickox

In last year's project https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/02/delius-sea-drift.html I found Sea Drift hard to come to grips with and finished my blog post thus: Perhaps there are treasures in Delius that I will finally appreciate one day, but for the moment he is not on my list of composers that I must explore further.

If there are treasures to come I don't think that they will be found among Delius' operas. I did see A Village Romeo and Juliet years ago and I have to say it was probably the most boring evening at the opera that I have ever spent. This opera had the merit of being shorter but otherwise my feelings were the same. I just can't get on Delius' wavelength. The music seems to drift along aimlessly with some overwrought chromatic harmony which I often find feels almost uncomfortable or worse. There were a few moments when the music settled down a bit into something lyrically attractive but otherwise this was not for me. There are four other Delius operas - three of them early works. I can't think that I will ever want to listen to any of them!  Still this project is all about exploring new things - not everything will come off.

Smyth: The Wreckers

Opera no 74

Smyth: The Wreckers

Soloists

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Odaline de la Martinez

I had included Ethel Smyth's double concerto in the list of pieces I didn't ever want to hear again at the end of last year's project https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/02/smyth-concerto-for-violin-and-horn.html so I wasn't expecting much from this opera.

In fact I thought that it was a really good piece - far more impressive that than two previous operas in this part of the project covering 20th century British opera. It is far more in the central European operatic mainstream than either of those pieces and to my way of thinking all the better for it. In fact were it not for the text you wouldn't think it was a British opera at all - and even then it is worth remembering that Smyth originally set the text in French.

There was some extremely dramatic music here - the big scene at the end of the first act in particular make a big impression. But throughout the score Smyth showed a complete command of pacing, with moments of contemplation giving way to high energy ensembles. And the orchestration was completely assured. 

Peter Grimes, another opera set by the coast, was only a generation away from The Wreckers. While that is undoubtedly a much greater work Smyth’s opera can be set next to is without embarrassment. Indeed the sound of the bells in the final scene of this work was a distinct pre-echo of Britten’s use of bells, both in Peter Grimes and elsewhere. I’ll have to find out whether the two compoers ever met and whether Britten knew any of Smyth’s music. 

Boughton: The Immortal Hour

Opera no 73

Boughton: The Immortal Hour

Soloists

English Chamber Orchestra

Alan G Melville

I thought that this was a very interesting work. To be honest I was not expecting very much - just a peice of rather fey fairy whimsy with fairly unsophisticated music. There was some of that but there was also plenty of places where there was real invention and dramatic interest. The harmonic pallet is rich - Delius is the most obvious point of comparison - and the orchestration rich and sonorous - plenty of Cor Anglais throughout. At times it did wander rather aimlessly (another Delius trait) but in other places in commended attention. There were some particularly beautiful offstage choral effects - the end of the first act in particular stood out. But the end, also with an offstage chorus, was the most abrupt ending to any opera that I remember (even including Wozzeck!). The music just disappears - in fact I thought at first that there was a fault on my CD and I had to listen to it again just to make sure!

This opera had a huge impact when it was first performances in London, with an initial run of 216 performances. It is hard to imagine it being successful nowadays, tastes have changes, but perhaps in a very sympathetic production it could still hold the stage. Certainly it has much to commend it. 

Stanford: The Travelling Companion

Opera no 72

Stanford: The Travelling Companion 

Soloists

New Sussex Opera

Toby Purser

This was Stanford's last opera - it was not performed until after his death. I have to say that I thought that it was a pretty mediocre work. Some of it was in  that rather fey 'hey nonny no' folksy style that I find so off-putting in British music of this era. But even ignoring that I didn't find much stylistic coherence to the piece and not much to grip the listener. The whole thing is extraordinarily old fashion for an opera from 1916, and it is hard to imagine that it will ever be more than a curiosity. Oddly enough the last couple of minutes - a gradual wind down towards a quiet ending impressed me more than anything else in the opera, but of course by that time it was far too late. So this is very much one to put down to experience.