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.
