The album at hand is a live recording of the premiere of the opera Written on Skin, commissioned from composer George Benjamin by the Festival of Aix-en-Provence in France. That's appropriate in that the opera is based on a medieval troubadour tale that could have been heard in that area, but in its compactness and clipped restraint it is a quite British work. The story (a version of which appears in The Decameron of Boccaccio), however, is over the top, and whether it is enhanced by the music or not is a matter of taste. ...
Read More
The album at hand is a live recording of the premiere of the opera Written on Skin, commissioned from composer George Benjamin by the Festival of Aix-en-Provence in France. That's appropriate in that the opera is based on a medieval troubadour tale that could have been heard in that area, but in its compactness and clipped restraint it is a quite British work. The story (a version of which appears in The Decameron of Boccaccio), however, is over the top, and whether it is enhanced by the music or not is a matter of taste. It's as grim as opera gets, featuring a shadowy medieval lord called the Protector; his wife, Agnès; and an artist-troubadour figure, called the Boy, who is commissioned by the Protector to tell the family's story in an illustrated manuscript. Jealousies develop, and, not to spoil too much, the heart of one of the characters is cooked and served up to another. The story was not a set of troubadour songs originally but a written-down short story that seems to have served as a source of...
Read Less
