Opera no 180
Sallinen: The King Goes Forth to France
I don’t think that I have heard any of Sallinen’s music (he didn’t feature in last year’s project) so I approached this opera with a completely open mind. I thought that it was a very entertaining piece but with some serious overtones. The King and his entourage start their journey during a future ice age and journey back to the 100 years war in the Middle Ages. The general style is somewhere between Britten and Stravinsky, with touches of Shostakovich, but there are references along the way to many musical styles from the 18th and 19th century. Somehow the composer pulls it altogether into a coherent whole and it left me with a very positive impression of a composer who I obviously need to explore in greater depth.
