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Critical Acclaim for Birmingham Opera Company's Production of Sir Michael Tippett's New Year

Jul. 22, 2024

Critics are raving about Birmingham Opera Company's production of Sir Michael Tippett's New Year, the first in over 30 years. Led by conductor Alpesh Chauhan OBE and director Keith Warner, the energetic new production ran from July 7-13 at The Dream Tent at Smithfield, Birmingham City Centre.

Writer and music critic Paul Griffeths calls New Year:

"The wildest and most open of [Tippett's] operas, New Year is an extraordinarily youthful conception for a composer in his mid-eighties, a work that spins his lyrical ecstasy and rhythmic vitality into a new world on the point of disintegration. Unlike its four predecessors, all of which had been written for the Royal Opera House, this one was composed for Houston Grand Opera, a relocation that encouraged Tippett to veer from opera to musical, even rock musical, giving space to pop song, spoken dialogue, joke and, above all, dance—the communal movement of bodies that would, as in The Midsummer Marriage but now within a much looser framework, with music say what words could not. Jo Ann and Donny—young woman and young man, white and black, both orphans—cannot join the dance, isolated as they are inside their personal fears and fantasies. And the dance itself is imperilled by social unease in this city that is ‘Somewhere and Today’. To it come visitors from ‘Nowhere and Tomorrow’: the captain (Regan), pilot (Pelegrin) and computer wizard (Merlin) of a space vessel—though these science-fiction characters turn out to be ritual agents (and to have human problems of their own). Donny undergoes a magical transformation; Jo Ann, through love, gains the courage to leave the room in which she has been hiding."

Reviews

**** "This staging of Michael Tippett’s complex opera, whose story of impoverished 80s Britain takes in sci-fi, street slang and electric guitar, is a remarkable feat"  Clive Paget, The Guardian 

**** "Operatic life would be much duller without the music of Michael Tippett and the work of Birmingham Opera Company. In this show the two bring out the best in each other." Neil Fisher, The Times

**** "Ravishing ensemble in immersive production" Clare Stevens, The Stage

Additionally, on July 27, George Parris conducts The Carice Singers in a performance of Tippett's Plebs angelica, a motet for double SATB chorus at College Hall in Wooster, as part of the Three Choirs Festival. At the same festival, the Heath Quartet, winners of a Gramophone Award for their recording of Tippett’s complete string quartets, perform his String Quartet No. 2on July 29 at St. Martin's Church, London Road.


The Christ Church Cathedral Choir, led by Stephen Darlington, perform Sir Michael Tippett's Plebs angelica

Finally, on August 30, Sir Andrew Davis conducts the Synergy Vocals and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Tippett's Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage alongside works by Stravinsky, Reich, and Elgar at Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms.


Sir Michael Tippett's Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage/BBC Symphony Chorus/Stephen Jackson,
conductor/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis, conductor)

To learn more about Sir Michael Tippett, visit schott-music.com.

Sir Michael Tippett
New Year (1986-1988)
an opera in three acts
Jo Ann, a trainee children's doctor, lyric soprano; Donny, her young brother, light baritone; Nan, their foster mother, dramatic mezzo; Merlin, the computer wizard, dramatic baritone; Pelegrin, the space pilot, lyric tenor; Regan, their boss, dramatic soprano; The Presenter, microphoned male singer; chorus of dancers and singers
3(1.,2.,3.pic).2.eh.1.bcl.3sax.1.cbn-4.2.3.1-perc(xyl, vib, glsp, tub bells, jazz kit [trap set: 2wdbl, 5tom-t, s.d, sus cym, h.h, b.d], ten d, slit dr, 2steel dr [high/low], 2brake d, clav, guiro, whip, cow bells, sm tam-t, clashed cyms, hand-held cyms played with mallet/steel bar, lg tri)-hp.egtr.bgtr-str (4.4.4.4.2min)-electronic tape-sampler kybd
100'

Plebs angelica (1943)
motet for double SATB choir
4'

String Quartet No. 2 (1941-1942)
21'

Ritual Dances (1947-1952)
from The Midsummer Marriage
for orchestra with optional SATB soloists and chorus
2(pic).2.2.2-4.2.3.0-timp.perc(tri, cym, gong, b.d)-hp.cel-str
29'

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