Promised End

Synopsis

One of the leading figures of British contemporary music. An operatic adaptation of King Lear, this is a stark and moving version of Shakespeare’s great drama about ageing, family ties and the meaning of life, with a libretto formed by scholar and Shakespeare authority Frank Kermode

Our Review:

12 October 2010

“Well, it’s different” muttered a woman in front of me at the interval. The trouble is it’s not, though, because Alexander Goehr’s new opera ploughs an over-familiar furrow of stale modernity. “It’s all much of a muchness” said someone else, coming closer to the mark.

A composer who sets Shakespeare to music must have something to say, otherwise why bother? Britten found a musical voice that allowed him to explore the amorality of innocence in A Midsummer Night’s Dream while Verdi, who delved into Otello’s psychology, used music to express emotional complexities that transcend mere words. But King Lear, with its histrionic sufferings and hard-wrought tragedy, is practically a grand opera already, which may explain why both these composers pulled back from the brink of setting it.

Goehr’s adaptation is no epic, except in the Germanic sense of theatrical alienation. Instead, he has chosen...

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