The Importance of Being Earnest (opera)

Oscar Wilde, author of the original play The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest is a three-act opera by Gerald Barry based on the play of the same name by Oscar Wilde. The opera was given concert performances in Los Angeles in 2011 and in London and Birmingham in 2012, and received its first fully staged performances at the Opéra national de Lorraine, Nancy, and the Linbury Studio Theatre, Covent Garden, in 2013.

Background

The opera was commissioned jointly by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Barbican Centre, and was completed by the composer in eight months. Barry himself adapted the libretto from the original play, cutting the text substantially. However, Wilde's plot is retained completely, as well as many of his most famous lines. The composer has commented: "The text was far too long, and I had to cut around two-thirds of it, but the structure is so strong that I think people will hardly notice. I got rid of all the social niceties, which gives a different tone—the butler is not so polite as he was!" In describing his technique, the composer has further said in respect of act 3:

Everyone's on stage, terrible scandals have been revealed about Miss Prism and the baby, and Canon Chasuble comes in and says "Everything is ready for the christening." Everyone just responds with weird vocal slides, there's no text at all. He responds by saying, "Your mood seems peculiarly secular" and they do it all again, as if they're animals in a menagerie. I was very pleased with that, I thought "I've matched Wilde in madness"

Concert performances of the opera were given in Los Angeles in April 2011 conducted by Thomas Adès, and in London (26 April 2012) and Birmingham (28 April 2012), the English performances being given by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, also conducted by Adès. In 2013 the opera was given its first staged performances on 17 March 2013 at the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy directed by Sam Brown, and in June 2013 at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio Theatre, conducted by Tim Murray. In October and November 2013 a touring production of the opera was given in Derry, Belfast, Cork and Dublin by Northern Ireland Opera, conducted by Pierre-André Valade.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Cast of premiere concert performance, April 2011 Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor: Thomas Adès	Cast of premiere British staging, June 2013 Britten Sinfonia, London Conductor: Tim Murray
Algernon Moncrieff	baritone	Joshua Bloom	Benedict Nelson
John Worthing	tenor	Gordon Gietz	Paul Curievici
Gwendolyn Fairfax	mezzo-soprano	Katalin Károlyi	Stephanie Marshall
Lady Bracknell	bass	Stephen Richardson	Alan Ewing
Miss Prism	contralto	Hilary Summers	Hilary Summers
Cecily Cardew	soprano	Hila Plitmann	Ida Falk Winland
The Rev. Canon Chasuble D.D.	Spoken role	Matthew Anchel
Butler	bass	Adam Lau	Simon Wilding

Synopsis

The action closely follows the outline of the original play, with the text substantially pared. A number of changes are introduced to create specific musical and theatrical events and effects. Act 1, which takes place in Algernon Moncrieff's flat in London, opens with Moncrieff playing his own variations on Auld Lang Syne on the piano. Gwendolen's mother Lady Bracknell, is sung by a male bass. Asserting the superiority of German music over French, she gives a rendition of Friedrich Schiller's Ode to Joy. In act 2 (the garden of Worthing's estate), Cecily is studying with her governess, Miss Prism, who extols the German language, and also gives a rendition of the Ode to Joy. At the meeting of Gwendolen and Cecily (each of whom asserts that she is engaged to 'Ernest'), the atmosphere between the two (in a dialogue effected via megaphones) grows steadily chillier, accompanied in the orchestra by the rhythmic demolition of a stack of dinner plates. In act 3 (the morning-room of Worthing's estate), the cast examines the Army Lists (via mobile phones) to discover that Jack's birth-name is indeed Ernest.

Reception

The actor Stephen Fry commented that making an opera setting of Wilde's play was like "taking a machete to a soufflé". However, critical reception of the opera has been generally very positive. The Los Angeles Times wrote of the staged premiere "The world now has something rare: a new genuinely comic opera and maybe the most inventive Oscar Wilde opera since Richard Strauss's Salome more than a century ago". Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade noted the climax to the confrontation of Cicely and Gwendolyn when the latter

proceeded to attack her tea-companion with acerbic remarks while 40 dinner plates were systematically demolished by a percussionist on the off-beats. This "ostinato" for fractured china made a fabulous din, and was a masterstroke on Barry's part. Other noteworthy moments were the merry jigs danced by Ernest ... and Lady Bracknell as they disputed the validity of his marriage proposal, and the serial duet sung by Algernon and Ernest about cucumber sandwiches.

Matthew Rye commented on the 2016 London production

Barry deliberately and constantly subverts our expectations, transcending the original and creating something completely new. He gets through acres of Wilde's text ... in almost patter style and to motoric regular rhythms that play against word stress and meaning; and then he sets the most mundane of phrases such as “They have been eating muffins” to extravagant melismas.

The opera won the Royal Philharmonic Society award for large-scale composition in 2012.

Recording

A recording of the 2012 London concert performance of the opera was issued by NMC Records in 2014, and was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award.

References

Notes

Sources

• Cruttwell-Read, Ninfea (2013). "Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest staged at the ROH Linbury Studio", in Bachtrack website (17 June 2013), accessed 2 April 2016.
• Hewett, Ivan (2012). "Gerald Barry talks about his new opera The Importance of Being Earnest", in The Daily Telegraph, 20 April 2012. Website accessed 1 April 2016.
• Kilby, Paul (2015). "Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest", 21 January 2015, in Music & Literature website, accessed 2 April 2016.
• Royal Opera House (2016). The Importance of Being Earnest. (Programme booklet).
• Rye, Matthew (2016). "Wilde life: The Importance of Being Earnest, the opera", 30 March 2016, in Bachtrack website, accessed 4 April 2016.