King Priam
Britten Sinfonia
Brighton Festival Chorus
Sian Edwards conductor
King Priam - Brindley Sherratt
Hecuba - Janice Watson
Hector - Mark Stone
Andromache - Jane Irwin
Paris - Stephen Chaundy
Helen - Louise Mott
Nurse - Ann Mason
Achilles - Alan Oke
Old Man - Graeme Broadbent
Patroclus - Ivan Ludlow
Hermes - Benjamin Hulett
Young Guard - Robin Tritschler
The eternal impulses and inherent futilities of war-making strike a contemporary chord in this 50th-anniversary concert performance of Michael Tippett’s moving second opera.
When King Priam is confronted with an impossible decision – to kill his baby son or face his (and Troy’s) own destruction (as foretold in Hecuba’s dream), the seeds are sown for a brutal tale of betrayal, vengeance and human suffering. Based on Homer’s Iliad and first performed to coincide with the reconsecration of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral in 1962, King Priam explores our personal and political struggles in making moral choices. Its lean and angular soundworld mirrors the violent tensions of Homer’s text, both as intimate psychodrama and epic mythology.
‘King Priam … like Britten’s War Requiem … is a searing, unanswerable indictment of violence and militarism…’ Gramophone
Supported by the Aisbitt Family
