Читать книгу Seven Angels - Glyn Maxwell - Страница 3

Five years ago we sat down to talk about how a collaboration between us might sound. We each arrived at a meeting with a wish-list of the composers we most wanted to commission. The meeting was short because Luke Bedford sat at the top of both our lists.

When Luke had identified Glyn Maxwell as the librettist he would work with, they wrote a concert work for BCMG which took a moment in Milton’s Paradise Lost as its starting point. Good Dream She Has was premiered in Birmingham in 2008.

After completing the concert work, we took Luke and Glyn to visit Wakehurst Place, Kew Garden’s outpost which houses the millennium seedbank, where a combination of edenic gardens and a pessimistic futurologist challenged us all to see Milton’s ecology in a new light. Then we watched as Luke and Glyn’s shared fascination with Milton, with language and with the retelling of tales shaped a piece which has the weight of myth and yet which could only have been made now. They talked about exploding the Milton and constructing a new story from the shards.

And then the conversation exploded too. BCMG has a long history of collaborating with Jonathan Watkins at Ikon. Through Jonathan we met Japanese artist Tadasu Takamine who has not only designed the opera, but also has a concurrent exhibition at Ikon Gallery this summer. Our partnerships with our co-producers at ROH2 at the Royal Opera House and Tramway Glasgow have been essential to making the production happen. And our collaboration with Friends of the Earth has given birth to a sister opera which will tour outdoors alongside Seven Angels. We are grateful also to the many funding partners and donors who have supported the development, commissioning, producing and touring of the project.

Collaboration is a creative necessity – we are at our best when in conversation with each other, with artists and with audiences. Welcome to the conversation – we look forward to hearing what you think.

Seven Angels was commissioned and produced by The Opera Group and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and co-produced with ROH2 and Tramway Glasgow. Commissioned with funds generously provided by the John Feeney Charitable Trust, the opera was developed with the support of a Jerwood Opera Fellowship at Aldeburgh Music and the Columbia Foundation Fund of the Capital Community Foundation.

The Opera Group is grateful to the following individuals for their support of Seven Angels:

David Bernstein, Robin Bidwell, Geoffrey Collens, Peter Espenhahn, Ian Hamilton, John Hughes, Thomas Lingard, Peter Lofthouse, Robert McFarland, Anthony Newhouse and Virginia Rushton.

BCMG is grateful to the following individuals for their support of Seven Angels:

Viv and Hazel Astling, Paul and Jean Bacon, William and Jane Barry, Paul Bond, Christopher Carrier, John Christophers, Alan Cook, Anne P Fletcher, Barrie Gavin, Richard Hartree, Tessa and Charles King-Farlow, Jeremy Lindon, Elizabeth Robinson for the Rowan Trust, Carolyn and Richard Sugden, Janet Waterhouse, Elizabeth and Barrie Withers; BCMG Foundation members: Kiaran Asthana, Alan S Carr, Alan Cook, Bernard Samuels, John and Anne Sweet; and two donors wishing to remain anonymous.

We are grateful to the following funders for their support of Seven Angels:

Arts Council England, Arts & Business, Daiwa Foundation, D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, Colwinston Charitable Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Japan Foundation, Jerwood Space, Leche Trust, Reed Foundation, RVW Trust and funding through Beyond Borders from the PRS for Music Foundation, Creative Scotland, Arts Council Northern Ireland, Arts Council Wales and Foyle Foundation.