The Dream Tent, Smithfield, Birmingham
This staging of Michael Tippett’s complex opera, whose story of impoverished 80s Britain takes in sci-fi, street slang and electric guitar, is a remarkable feat
Michael Tippett’s fifth and final opera was written in the mid-80s, a time of social unrest in a Britain fearful of multiculturalism and grappling with the ghettoisation of its inner cities. Jo Ann, a youth worker in Terror Town who is afraid to leave her home, attracts the attention of time travellers from the future. Meanwhile, her foster-brother Donny, a young Black man, is struggling to connect with his African roots. Venturing out, he’s beaten by a brutal mob hunting a scapegoat to drive out the old year and ring in the new. Ultimately, it’s Jo Ann’s redemptive connection with the space pilot Pelegrin that enables her to move on.
As with all his operas, the composer wrote his own libretto for New Year, drawing on Jungian philosophy, street slang and TV sci-fi (Blake’s 7 was a reference). The wildly imaginative score jangles with electric guitars and saxophones and incorporates contemporary forms including blues and – new for Tippett – reggae and rap. Critics who had never liked his texts similarly pooh-poohed his attempts at creating an urban sound world.
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