The Mask of Orpheus

The Mask of Orpheus

The Mask of Orpheus
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CD Details

Performer: Omar Ebrahim
Performer: Alan Opie
Composer: Harrison Birtwistle
Conductor: Andrew Davis
Performer: BBC Singers
Performer: Anne-Marie Owens
Performer: Jean Rigby
Orchestra: BBC Symphony Orchestra
Performer: Marie Angel
Performer: Peter Bronder
Performer: Jon Garrison
Edition: Music CD
Format: Box set
CD Release Date: 1999-01-25
Music Label: Nmc Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Act 1: Parados - BBC SO/Andrew Davis
  2. Act 1, Scene 1: First Poem Of Reminiscence - Jon Garrison/Peter Bronder
  3. Act 1, Scene 1: First Act Of Love/First Duet Of Love - Jon Garrison/Jean Rigby
  4. Act 1, Scene 1: First Passing Cloud - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  5. Act 1, Scene 1: First Structure Of Decision - BBC SO/Andrew Davis
  6. Act 1, Scene 1: First Ceremony - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  7. Act 1, Scene 1: First Love Duet - Stephen Allen/Joe Garrison/Jean Rigby
  8. Act 1, Scene 1: First Song Of Magic - Arwel Huw Morgan
  9. Act 1, Scene 1: First Immortal Dance - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  10. Act 1, Scene 2: First Cry Of Memory - Jean Rigby/Anne-Marie Owens
  11. Act 1, Scene 2: Second Passing Cloud - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  12. Act 1, Scene 2: Second Act Of Love - Anne-Marie Owens
  13. Act 1, Scene 2: First Allegorical Flower Of Reason - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  14. Act 1, Scene 2: First Look Of Loneliness (Aristaeus) - Alan Opie
  15. Act 1, Scene 3: First Time Shift/First Human Lie - Alan Opie/Omar Ebrahim
  16. Act 1, Scene 3: First Whisper Of Change (A) - Alan Opie/Joe Garrison
  17. Act 1, Scene 3: Second Ceremony/First Exchange - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  18. Act 1, Scene 3: First Song Of Failure - Stephen Allen/Nicholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Arwel Huw Morgan/Jon Garrison/Jean Rigby...
  19. Act 1, Scene 3: Second Immortal Dance - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  20. Act 1, Scene 3: First Hysterical Aria (A) - Jon Garrison
  21. Act 1, Scene 3: Second Statement Of Reason - Jon Garrison
  22. Act 1, Scene 3: First Hysterical Aria (B) - Jon Garrison
  23. Act 1, Scene 3: First Magic Formula - Jon Garrison
  24. Act 1, Scene 3: First Hysterical Aria (C) - Jon Garrison
  25. Act 1, Scene 3: First Shout Of Gratitude - Jon Garrison
Music CD 2
  1. Act 2, Scene 1: Second Time Shift/Second Love Duet - Peter Bronder/Anne-Marie Owns
  2. Act 2, Scene 1: First Whisper Of Change (B) - Peter Bronder/Anne-Marie Owens
  3. Act 2, Scene 1: 1st Arch - Jon Garrison/Omar Ebrahim
  4. Act 2, Scene 1: 2nd Arch - Omar Ebrahim/Juliet Booth/Philippa Dames-Longworth/Elizabeth McCormack
  5. Act 2, Scene 1: 3rd Arch - Jon Garrison/Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephan Allen/Nicholas Folwell/Stephen RIchardson/Juliet Booth...
  6. Act 2, Scene 1: 4th Arch - Jon Garrison/Jean Rigby/Anne-Marie Owens
  7. Act 2, Scene 1: 5th Arch - Jon Garrison/Peter Bronder/Anne-Marie Owens
  8. Act 2, Scene 1: 6th Arch - Jon Garrison
  9. Act 2, Scene 1: 7th Arch - Jon Garrison/Marie Angel
  10. Act 2, Scene 1: 8th Arch - Jon Garrison/Anne-Marie Owens
  11. Act 2, Scene 1: 9th Arch - Jon Garrison/Peter Bronder/Anne-Marie Owens
  12. Act 2, Scene 2: 10th Arch - Jon Garrison
  13. Act 2, Scene 2: 11th Arch - Jon Garrison
  14. Act 2, Scene 2: 12th Arch - Jon Garrison/Peter Bronder/Marie Angel/Anne-Marie Owens
  15. Act 2, Scene 2: 13th Arch - Jon Garrison/Juliet Booth/Philippa Dames-Longworth/Elizabeth McCormack/Stephen Allen...
  16. Act 2, Scene 2: 14th Arch - Jon Garrison/Jean Rigby/BBC Singers/Simon Joly
  17. Act 2, Scene 2: 15th Arch - Jon Garrison/BBC Singers/Simon Joly
  18. Act 2, Scene 3: 16th Arch - Peter Bronder/Anne-Marie Owens/Joe Garrison/Jean Rigby/Juliet Booth/Philippa Dames-Longworth
  19. Act 2, Scene 3: 17th Arch - Peter Bronder/Joe Garrison/Anne-Marie Owens
  20. Act 2, Scene 3: Second Allegorical Flower Of Reason - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  21. Act 3, Scene 1: First Terrible Death/Second Whisper Of Change - Peter Bronder
Music CD 3
  1. Act 3, Scene 1: Third Time Shift - Peter Bronder/Alan Opie/Omar Ebrahim/Marie Angel/Arwel Huw Morgan
  2. Act 3, Scene 1: Third Whisper Of Change - BBC SO/Andrew Davis
  3. Act 3, Scene 2: Third Dream - Jon Garrison
  4. Act 3, Scene 2: Third Allegorical Flower Of Reason - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  5. Act 3, Scene 2: Third Song Of Magic (A) - Jon Garrison
  6. Act 3, Scene 2: Euridice Puppet/Euridice Singer - Jean Rigby/Anne-Marie Ownes
  7. Act 2, Scene 3: Third Song Of Magic (B) - Jon Garrison
  8. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Spoken Argument - Jon Garrison
  9. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Song Of Magic (C) - Jon Garrison
  10. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Sentence Of Teaching - Omar Ebrahim
  11. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Terrible Death - Jon Garrison
  12. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Song Of Magic (D) - Jon Garrison
  13. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Ceremony - BBC Singers/Simon Joly/Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/Nicholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson...
  14. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Song Of Magic (E) - Jon Garrison
  15. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Love Duet - Jon Garrison/Jean Rigby
  16. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Song Of Magic (F) - Jon Garrison
  17. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Hysterical Aria - Marie Angel
  18. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Passing Cloud - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  19. Act 3, Scene 3: Third Immortal Dance - Arwel Huw Morgan/Stephen Allen/NIcholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson/Juliet Booth
  20. Exodus - Joe Garrison/Peter Bronder/Stephen Allen/Nicholas Folwell/Stephen Richardson

Music reviews of The Mask of Orpheus

Music Review: Tough Nut - Tasty Kernel
Rating: 5 Stars

OK. So Harry Birtwistle is tough, I know. But perseverance, especially in this piece, reaps copious rewards.

This is a huge opera - not particularly in length or even in the forces demanded, but in ambition. It starts with the very birth of language and song, a musical creation myth as potent as the beginning of Rheingold, and takes us through a dramatic narrative that deals in the nature and meaning of myth and memory while telling the story of Orpheus and Euridice. Or, rather, the stories. For the Mask of Orpheus continually takes different views of the myth, different versions of the story as handed down by the folk traditions, and sets them against each other to reflect on one another.

Cold and intellectual, then? Not at all. I have never sat through the end of the second Act - either in the theatre or listening at home - without a tear or two. Act 1 includes an aria with flute obbligato as ravishing and purely beautiful as anything in Birtwistle's output (at least before The Second Mrs. Kong). That Act ends with the terrifying ululations of the Oracle of the Dead - truly scary. The dramatic impact of the second Act as Orpheus moves from arch to arch across to the Land of the Dead (what a curiously inexplicable but potent image those arches are) reaches a towering and thrilling climax. The musical tides of the third Act move inexorably in and out, gathering power and emotional coherence as they evolve.

As for the electronic music, that is wonderfully integrated into the fabric of the piece. The Voice of the god Apollo is, as it should be, imposing and mesmeric. The interludes (representing other mythological stories that reflect on and elaborate the main narrative and which are mimed/danced in the theatre), these grow organically and seamlessly out of the main musical fabric. And they are music, pure and satisfying, not distortions of other things or mere sound-collages. It's just that they were created on the machines at IRCAM and not on the machines we know as conventional musical instruments.

Does the performance live up to the piece, then? Certainly does! Maybe no-one will bring quite the intensity to Orpheus 1 that Philip Langridge did in the premiere performances - but, then, that's true of most of his work. This is a recording of a live semi-staged concert performance at the Royal Festival Hall - maybe not the kindest acoustic for this piece, especially for the singers - but all the performers acquit themselves heroically and show real dedication to what is, I believe, one of the great operas of the second half of the last century.

Try it. Then try it again. You could get hooked on 'difficult' music.
More The Mask of Orpheus free music reviews:
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