Gerald Barry The Importance of Being Earnest (European premiere - Barbican Co-commission) Birmingham Contemporary Music Group Thomas Adès conductor Barbara Hannigan Cecily Cardew Peter Tantsits John Worthing Joshua Bloom Algernon Moncrieff Katalin Karolyi Gwendolen Fairfax Hilary Summers Miss Prism Alan Ewing Lady Bracknell Benjamin Bevan Lane/Merriman Joshua Hart Dr Chasuble
Concert performance
Stephen Fry, Fiona Shaw, Gerald Barry and Thomas Adès discuss the work:
'All that matters in the theatre is that the audience be gripped - that's the most crucial thing.' So says Irish composer Gerald Barry, which is surely one of the most encouraging enticements to see his new opera, based on the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest. More encouragement must be the sort of words that greeted the work's world premiere in 2011: zany, hysterical and highly sophisticated. Another final encouragement must be the advocacy of fellow composer Thomas Adès, who prior to his near decade running the Aldeburgh Festival was music director of acclaimed new music specialists the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, which he conducts tonight.
'The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group musicians' flair was clearly in evidence.' The Guardian
Commissioned by Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Gustavo Dudamel, Music Director & Barbican, London.
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