Opera in a Prologue and Three Acts [105’]
Libretto by Hattie Naylor
first performed 10 October 2006,
Alexandra Palace Theatre
Daniel Broad, Phyllis Cannan,
Sabdbh Dennedy, Kim-Marie Woodhouse,
Louise Mott, Monica Brett-Crowther
p. Bill Bankes-Jones, d. Tim Meacock
Chroma c. Tim Murray
commissioned by Tête-à-Tête.
CAST
Odysseus – baritone
Hecuba, Suitor, Pig, Man, Shade – mezzo-soprano
Nausicaa, Shepherd Boy, Siren, Pig, Man, Shade – soprano
King Alcinous, Polyphemus, Tiresias, Suitor, Pig, Man – contralto
Circe, Siren, Pig, Man, Suitor, Shade – mezzo-soprano
Penelope, Queen Arete, Anticleia, Pig, Man – mezzo soprano
ORCHESTRA
oboe (+ cor anglais)
clarinet (+ bass clarinet)
harp
percussion
violin
‘cello
double-bass
SYNOPSIS & GALLERY
SPINNING A NEW YARN:
KNITTING THE ODYSSEY – an article by Julian Grant
AUDIO EXTRACTS HERE
REVIEWS
Julian Grant clearly knows a thing or two about opera. His music has a crackling vitality that embraces both a wittily syncopated chorus for Circe’s snorting pigs and some shimmering and seductively blending Straussian episodes. The vocal lines are generously phrased, the instrumentation light, but inventive……this is that rare thing, a new opera that I craved to hear and ponder again.
–RUPERT CHRISTIANSEN The Daily Telegraph
Julian Grant’s score is the biggest plus; he and librettist Hattie Naylor portray Odysseus as flawed warrior rather than noble hero, and his music is sharp, flowing and sometimes pleasingly childish, as in the conga for Circe’s farting pigs.
–ERICA JEAL The Guardian
The skilfully orchestrated music, with its Stravinskian and Brittenesque echoes, was beautifully played by a small ensemble and the vocal lines were richly worked
–MICHAEL CHURCH The Independent
we had Grant’s tightly crafted score, fluently evoking the shattered mind of our traumatised hero as well as the exotic encounters on his journey.
–NEIL FISHER The Times
this shoe-string touring production is a must-see………Grant’s frequently gorgeous Ravellian scoring for chamber orchestra and rich, Poulenc-influenced ensemble writing for female voices………But the loop and pull of thematic threads is as insistent as the whirr of the spinning wheel as Odysseus is repeatedly reeled in and cast off by the formidable women of Homer’s epic.
–ANNA PICARD The Independent on Sunday
Julian Grant’s music is attractive, and his mix of
Stravinskian orchestral colors with mellifluous attic-style
modal melodies works beautifully.
–WARWICK THOMPSON Bloomberg
Julian Grant’s music has echoes of Britten, Berio and the peculiarly English ecstasy of Tippett. the flexible vocal lines carry the narrative well, in general easy and melodic and not lapsing into that aimless, by-the-yard parlando that can fill manuscript paper so quickly. His music also rises to the opera’s big moments–the recognition scene when Odysseus finally makes it back to Ithaca, the suitors’ lilting wooing of Penelope, Odysseus’s dark soul-searching, the pigs’ dance, the blinding of Polyphemus, the Sirens’ song. there was a great deal to enjoy.
–PETER REED Opera magazine
