Promised End
From: Wednesday, 3rd November 2010
To: Saturday, 6 November 2010
Our Review: 
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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:
Anne Morley-Priestman - 3 November 2010
Alexander Goehr’s variation on Shakespeare’s King Lear is a stunning piece of music theatre in James Conway’s premiere production for English Touring Opera. Geohr’s score is an uncompromisingly 21st century one but it perfectly illuminates this pared-down morality myth as visualised by the director and designer Adam Wiltshire.
We are in a stark animalistic world; nature is indeed red in tooth and claw. Sardonic master of its ceremonies is Edmund; by the end, God has indeed stood up for bastards. Lear himself and Gloucester have paid the highest price for their wilful choices among their progeny but so have the innocent. Goehr and his co-librettist Frank Kermode have allocated the roles of both Cordelia and the Fool to a single mezzo-soprano with moving effect.
The Aurora Orchestra and conductor Ryan Wigglesworth are on-stage throughout, albeit behind a dark gauze. The nine singers enter and confront us, the audience, before a sin...
Cast
Roderick Earle (King Lear)
Nigel Robson (Gloucester)
Lina Markeby (Fool/Cordelia)
Nicholas Garrett (Edmund)
Adrian Dwyer (Edgar)
Jacqueline Varsey (Goneril)
Julia Sporsen (Regan)
Creative
Alexander Goehr (Music)
William Shakespeare (arr. Frank Kermode) (Lyrics)
English Touring Opera (Company)
Frank Kermode (Adaptation)
Ryan Wigglesworth (Conductor)
Adam Wiltshire (Design)
Guy Hoare (Lighting)
Information
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