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Gerald Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest in Premiere Staging

Mar. 04, 2013

Gerald Barry’s <em>The Importance of Being Earnest</em> in Premiere Staging

On March 17, Gerald Barry’s wildly inventive opera The Importance of Being Earnest receives its world premiere staging at the Opéra national de Lorraine of France. Based on the celebrated Oscar Wilde play, the 90-minute, three-movement opera features the composer’s own libretto. Co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and London’s Barbican Centre, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Thomas Adès, premiered the opera in concert form in April 2011 as part of the orchestra’s Green Umbrella series. Adès subsequently conducted the European concert premiere at the Barbican in 2012. Mark Swed wrote of the premiere in LA:

Sensational…the opera is hysterically funny. The score is highly sophisticated and indescribably zany. Although unstaged, the concert performance proved marvelous theater…The world now has something rare: a new genuinely comic opera and maybe the most inventive Oscar Wilde opera since Richard Strauss’ Salome more than a century ago. 

With staging by Sam Brown and conducted by Tito Muñoz, the Opéra national de Lorraine’s French premiere features Chad Shelton, Phillip Addis, Ida Falk Winland, Wendy Dawn Thompson, Diana Montague, Steven Beard, Alan Ewing, and Jose Luis Barreto. Running from March 17 through 23, Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest sees a second new production in June when director Ramin Gray and the Royal Opera House present the first UK-staging at the Linbury Studio at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House in London. Performances run from June 14 through 22.

For complete performance details and ticket information, visit the Opéra national de Lorraine.

More information about the upcoming Royal Opera House production is located at www.rok.uk.

To learn more about Gerald Barry, go to: www.schott-music.com.

Gerald Barry
The Importance of Being Earnest (2009/2010)
opera in three acts based on the play by Oscar Wilde
libretto (Eng.) by the composer
soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, bass-baritone, 2 basses; male chamber choir (pre-recorded for Act 1 only)
1(pic).1(ca).1.bcl.2(2.cbsn)-2.2(1.Dtpt).1.1-timp.2perc-pno(cel)-str
90'

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