Gawain
Music by Harrison Birtwistle · premiered 1991 · at Royal Opera House
Gawain is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle to a libretto by David Harsent.
The story is based on the Middle English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
The opera was a commission from the Royal Opera House, London, where it was first performed on 30 May 1991.
Rhian Samuel has published a detailed analysis of the opera.
Birtwistle revised it in 1994, and the premiere of the revised version was given at the Royal Opera House on 20 April 1994.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Gawain (opera)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include The Triumph of Time (1972) and the operas The Mask of Orpheus (1986), Gawain (1991), and The Minotaur (2008). The last of these was ranked by music critics at The Guardian in 2019 as the third-best piece of the 21st century. Even his compositions that were not written for the stage often showed a theatrical approach. A performance of his saxophone concerto Panic during the BBC's Last Night of the Proms caused "national notoriety". He received many…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Harrison Birtwistle", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Harrison Birtwistle
- Down by the Greenwood Side (1969)