PERELANDRA (1964)

Opera in 3 Acts. Libretto: David Marsh after C.S.Lewis Written: 1960-64.

Sci-fi allegory of the Adam & Eve story. Professor Ransom is plucked from earth and taken to the paradise planet Perelandra to combat evil in the form of another earthling, Weston.

First performances in concert 1964: Guildhall, Cambridge 14th June, Oxford Town Hall June 16th, Mermaid Theatre, London 21st June. Cast: Hervey Allan, John Noble, Neil Jenkins, Elaine Hewit, Michael Rippon. Conductor: Norman Hearn.

Revised in 2 acts 1969: Performances: Roberts Hall, Haverford College, Pennsylvania 20th - 22nd Nov, New York 24th Nov 1969.

"It is a genuine opera, with a very serious plot, and it is full of arias and choruses and has a deft score. … The idiom of the music is, as most progressive composers would say, 'not of our time.' It is unabashedly old-fashioned. It represents the Handel-Mendelssohn tradition, which is the tradition of most unselfconscious British Music."

THE NEW YORKER 6 December 1969

MUSIC & LYRICS: OPERAS

THE MAN WITH A 1,000 FACES

Libretto: Colin Wilson 1964.

A fake fairground mystic uses a variety of disguises and all the latest hocus-pocus to seduce his female clients.

First performance: Malthouse Theatre, Hassocks 1990.

"The project … [is set] in the 1960s and reflects some of that era's prediliction for gurus, transcendental meditation and mental self-dissection."

THE STAGE 29 November 1990

THE VISITORS

The Visitors, Arthur Scholey after Tolstoy, 1987.

Andrew is a patient in a psychiatric hospital following the tragic death of his wife and children. His brother Christopher, with his family ('the visitors'), attempt to penetrate his despair by the re-enactment of a favourite childhood story. The characters, compelled to participate, find themselves caught up in a tale, which parallels actual events. The opera shifts between two planes of reality.

First performance: Malthouse Theatre, Hassocks 1989.USA concerts Oberlin 1987. Concert Brighton Festival May 1988, Georgian Theatre Richmond, Harrogate Theatre. Battersea Arts Centre, London 25th August, 1991.

"An evening of unalloyed pleasure … a continuous sheath of lyric melody. The music is just slightly Slavonic enough in mood to acknowledge the story's origin but always original and, at times, of more than ordinary beauty."

THE STAGE 14 September 1989

MUSIC & LYRICS: OPERAS

CANDLETREE

Arthur Scholey 1980.

A Christmas Opera based on the legend of St Boniface and the first Christmas tree.

First performance: Saint Botolph, London 21st December 1989.

MUSIC & LYRICS: OPERAS