w18800
| Title | Rumpus Room, The : Opera in 2 Acts |
| Contributors |
Derek Ball (composer) Alasdair Gray (author) |
| Composition date | 2010 |
| Duration (mins) | 85 |
| Category | opera theatre |
| Instrumentation | 2 S A 2 T Bar B-Bar / SATB 4Vn 2 Va 2 Vc Db |
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| Programme Note | A tale of industrial relations set in a factory! But this can not be accused of being a mere political tract, a piece of left-wing agitprop. Alongside hardheaded observations on how global capital works behind the scenes of our daily lives is a lyrical account of how the human heart works within that system, sometimes gloriously transcending it, sometimes corrupted by it or tragically crushed by it. In 1976 Alasdair Gray and Robert Lacey conceived the idea of this opera. Robert was a composer at the time but - unhappily - was unable to make a living wage for his young family and gave the profession up altogether. There was now a libretto but no music. In August 2010 after reading the libretto and its story in "A Gray Playbook" I, Derek Ball, accosted Alasdair Gray in a pub, the Oran Mor in Glasgow's west end, and begged permission to take over the project. Delighted at receiving apositive response from Alasdair I took the decision to - as it were - "commission myself ' and wired into the writing. A few months later the job was done. In this task I ws greatly assisted by the numerous highly musical hints which pepper the libretto in the form of both structural features and stage directions, making me realise that as well as being a master of so many other art forms, Alasdair Gray is a consummate librettist. |
This work is associated with the following collection items:
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