GREEK

[uffeviking]

Mark-Anthony Turnage and Richard Bernas.

A grand combination making my heart pound listening to this gifted young composer's music being presented by an equally gifted conductor in the ArtHaus DVD. It's the first Turnage video I have – if you know of any others available, don't keep it a secret! - . I already had for some time the ARGO CD and am familiar with the work and loved it, but now seeing it makes it even more powerful. The cast of incredibly gripping actors – four of them in multiple roles – is one of the best singing actors I have seen in a long time.

This DVD should create in this forum a following of  Mark-Anthony Turnage, with future expanding interest in contemporary composers.

Does Richard still post here? Why does the CD list The Greek Ensemble under your direction and at the ArtHaus it's the Almeida Ensemble? Same group, different contract?  Whoever, Great music!

[Lobby]

Lis,

I don't think his other opera "The Silver Tassie" has been released on DVD, but you may be able to find a live CD recording that was issued by English National Opera a few year's back.

The following extract from a review of the opera's first revival will give you some idea of what it is like:

The story tells of a popular young Dublin man (Harry Heegan) in 1915 who just before returning to the Western front wins a football cup, the Silver Tassie. His good looks and popularity stimulate both rivalries and the love of his sweetheart Jessie. Back at the front he is wounded and his injuries leave him unable to walk or function below the waist. Back in Ireland after the War his life has changed. Bitterness has replaced optimism and his girlfriend is now being willingly courted by his one-time best friend and war-time saviour Barney, whose recue of Harry earned him a VC.

The story is a biting piece of social commentary reminicent in some ways both of Berg's Wozzeck. As Berg did in Wozzeck Mark-Anthony Turnage has loosely imposed a musical super-structure on the work so that the music can more easily articulate the drama. In the interview in the programme-note he comments, "Right from when I first read the play, I thought of it as quite symphonic". The almost fragmented series of events and encounters that make up the first scene are transformed by the second scene set in the western front trenches and by the third when Harry is awaiting an operation on his now useless lower half. The balancing return to Dublin life, this time not a war-time post-football match celebration but a post-war festive dance, shows the effects of the hero's, Harry Heegan, catastrophe. This is very moving opera, in particular the choral scene in the trenches. Turnage has taken great pains to differentiate the sonority of each scene, and use instrumentation and vocal colours to give each part of the opera its special tone.

I think this opera is more approachable than Greek. It's a full scale opera, rather than a chamber opera and shows more clearly his influences, including Britten.  It's well worth searching out though.

Jon

[uffeviking]

I always follow your advise, Jon!

Thank you for the lead and I found the Turnage at Arkiv Music, but as special order. As a rule, they are very good at coming up with a rare disc. The Silver Tassie sounds like an overwhelming work by Turnage; tragedy and hopefully there is a joyous ending, as there is at Greek. - Did I just give away the climax of Greek? - Maybe prospective watchers of Greek might disagree with my judgement calling the ending 'joyous'!

But joy it is to see you here; I hope all is well!