Seven Angels
Recommended by The Guardian back in January as one of 2011’s “best classical music events”, you will have the chance, this summer, to experience the eagerly-awaited first opera from one of the UK’s most admired young composers: Luke Bedford’s Seven Angels, which premieres at CBSO Centre, Birmingham on Friday 17 June and Saturday 18 June before a UK tour culminating in three performances at the Royal Opera House in July.
Luke, whose awards include The BBC Radio 3 Listeners’ Prize at the British Composer Awards, has written a beautiful score which is dark but seductive, tense but lyrical, and combines both haunting solo voices and uplifting choral textures.
Working in creative collaboration with acclaimed poet and playwright Glyn Maxwell (who recently wrote Liberty, the French revolution epic for Shakespeare’s Globe), the pair has crafted a stunning new work of music theatre: an ecological parable inspired by themes in John Milton’s poetic masterpiece Paradise Lost.
Seven Angels is the first collaboration between two award-winning companies – The Opera Group and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and is co-produced with ROH2 and Tramway. It is also the first time either Group will use a visual artist to realise the set and costumes for one of their works. Contemporary Japanese artist Tadasu Takamine, who has his first UK retrospective at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery during the tour of the opera, has created an on-stage world of magic and imagination.
All the ingredients are in place for a really special theatrical and musical experience. Tickets are on sale now for the Birmingham premiere performances: just call 0121 767 4050 or book online at www.bcmg.org.uk.
