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MUSIC THEATRE WALES BRINGS ITS NEW PRODUCTION OF GREEK TO ABERYSTWYTH |
Mark-Anthony Turnage’s vivid re-working of the Oedipus myth for the age of discontentABERYTWYTH ARTS CENTRE Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 7.30pm “it's a compliment to say it sometimes feels like an operatic Eastenders special” - The Guardian**** Music Theatre Wales brings its new production of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek to Aberystwyth Arts Centre – just twenty-three years after the composer rocked audiences with his vivid, angry re-working of the Oedipus myth for Thatcher’s Britain. This new production, directed by Michael McCarthy, and with ingeniously economical designs by Aberystwyth-based Simon Banham - has collected unanimously glowing reviews since it opened earlier this year. The Observer’s critic commented: “This brilliant chamber opera…still retains all its excoriating force in Music Theatre Wales's compact new staging” Michael Rafferty conducts the Music Theatre Wales Ensemble in a musical score that runs the gamut from football chants through snatches of jazz and rock to passages of real lyricism. The cast includes baritone Marcus Farnsworth as Eddy, the opera’s seedy, restless protagonist. Soprano Sally Silver sings the role of Mum, mezzo Louise Winter is Wife and baritone Gwion Thomas sings the role of Dad. In keeping with the production’s mood of rough physicality, they also play a number of other roles. Lighting is by Ace McCarron. Music Theatre Wales’s new production of Greek is a timely revival, coming in the same year as the premiere of Turnage’s latest opera, Anna Nicole, at the Royal Opera House. It was with Greek, commissioned by Hans Werner Henze for the Munich Biennale in 1988 and based on a play by Steven Berkoff, that the young Mark-Anthony Turnage first burst on to the international scene. The young composer’s wide frame of stylistic reference – ranging from rock and jazz to high-art – and his vivid dramatic gift have made Greek into a contemporary classic. Within 18 months of its premiere, the opera was presented by the Edinburgh Festival, on BBC TV and by ENO, and has since been seen across the world. More about Greek A modern reworking of the Oedipus myth, the opera is set in the 1980s in the East End of London. The plagues that beset the city are unemployment, racism and police violence. Greek’s seedy, boozy protagonist Eddy is stuck in a rut and longs for more. When his Dad tells him that a fortune teller once predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother, Eddy decides he’s had enough and leaves home to find love in the unlikely form of the wife of a man he kicks to death. Little does he know that ten years later he will discover his true identity, with tragic consequences… Swinging from demotic energy to soulful intensity, Turnage’s jazz-influenced score vividly conveys the overt theatricality of the larger-than-life characters, throwing this human tragedy into sharp relief. The stylised spoken dialogue, with its exaggerated intonation of “cockney defiance,” becomes another aspect of the music. It moves from the rhythmic cacophony of the football chant through snatches of jazz and rock to passages of real lyricism. About Music Theatre Wales Music Theatre Wales, based in Cardiff, is a pioneering force in contemporary opera in Britain, with an established international reputation. Led by Joint Artistic Directors Michael McCarthy and Michael Rafferty, its innovative productions have included works by Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, Nigel Osborne, Michael Tippett, Philippe Boesmans, Philip Glass and Lynne Plowman. Music Theatre Wales is an Associate Company of The Royal Opera House’s ROH2 strand and tours widely in Wales, the UK and Europe. Michael McCarthy is co-founder and Joint Artistic Director of Music Theatre Wales, Dramaturg of FIVE:15 (Scottish Opera) and Artistic Director of Operatoriet, the contemporary opera studio for Norway. |
| Aberystwyth Arts Centre web site: www.aber.ac.uk/artscentre |
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Tuesday, September 20, 2011 |
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