Details

Wagner Dream is described by Jonathan Harvey as "a fantasy, based on fact but following it way beyond what is known." Set on the morning of Wagner's death (in Venice), he continues work on an essay but, just at the point at which he begins to consider the implications of his 28-year-old project to write an opera on a Buddhist subject, he suffers a heart attack. Starting from the sketches Wagner left behind, Harvey and librettist Jean-Claude Carriere have built a rich operatic fantasy mingling scenes from Wagner's domestic life with the myth of Prakriti, whose love for the Buddhist monk Ananda is at first thwarted, but finally reaches a chaste fulfillment. At the heart of Wagner Dream is the clash of two cultures, expressed by a speaking level for Wagner in Venice and a singing level for Wagner's unrealised opera ?Die Sieger' in Buddha's India. Semi staged production

Cast/Performers

Claire Booth (Prakiti), Richard Angas (Old Brahmin), Roderick Williams (Buddha), Nicholas Le Provost (Richard Wagner), Ruth Lass (Cosima Wagner), Julia Innocenti (Carrie Pringle), Richard Jackson (Dr Keppler), Sally Brooks (Betty Vajrayogni)

Creatives/Company

Music: Jonathan Harvey
Lyrics: Jean-Claude Carriere
Producer(s): Barbican, BBC Symphony Orchestra
Company: BBC Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Martyn Brabbins
Director: Orpha Phelan
Design(s): Charlie Cridlan, Gilbert Nouno (IRCAM computer music designer)