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World music CD DVD shop and Classic distribution
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ID: MNRCD111_112 (EAN: 5060116570618) | 2 CD | DDD Vydano: 2006
- LABEL:
- MN Records
- Podkolekce:
- Opera
- Skladatel:
- NYMAN, Michael Laurence
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Interpreti:
- SLATER, Andrew | WILLIAMS, Helen (soprano)
- Soubory:
- Michael Nyman Band
- Dirigenti:
- McGRATH, Paul
- Dal informace:
The tenth release on MN Records, and the second opera recording for the label, Love Counts is a love story between the unlikeliest of couples: Avril, a lecturer in mathematics at a major college who has divorced a man who physically abused her, and Patsy, a middle-weight fighter at the end of his career who cannot read or recognise numbers.
Michael Nyman uses Riemenschneider's collection of 371 Bach chorale harmonisations to help Patsy find his voice - they are harmonically fragmented, sped up, slowed down, overlaid with themselves. Just as Dr P, the Alzheimer's suffering protagonist of Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, has 'his' Schumann, so, in Love Counts, Patsy, a parallel sufferer, has 'his' Bach.
Award-winning writer Michael Hastings had previously worked with Nyman on the libretto for the opera Man and Boy: Dada, also available on MN Records.
Love Counts was commissioned by the Badisches Staatstheater, Karlesruhe, Germany and first performed there on 12th March 2005, directed by Robert Tannenbaum. This is a recording of the Almeida Theatre (London) production of Love Counts where it was performed in July 2006 by the Michael Nyman Band, bass baritone Andrew Slater and soprano Helen Williams, designed by Peter McKintosh and directed by Lindsay Posner.
CD 1
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| NYMAN, Michael Laurence (b. 1944) | | | Act 1 | | | 1. | "Excuse me. Excuse me." | 14:42 | | | 2. | "This lah-di-dah dame" | 10:10 | | | 3. | "Wore these my first pro win" | 10:09 | | | 4. | "How much does this bill say?" | 3:46 | | | 5. | "This is a set" | 5:01 | | | 6. | "Patsy, my love" | 4:20 | | | 7. | "Let's suppose for today" | 12:05 | |
CD 2
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| Act 2 | | | 1. | "They say nothing is secret" | 6:22 | | | 2. | "Forty seven", "Sixty three" | 4:28 | | | 3. | "It's for you. Why is it for you?" | 5:06 | | | 4. | "Now, in Hebrew mathematical art" | 5:39 | | | 5. | "You didn't tell me you did this every morning" | 5:05 | | | 6. | Instrumental 1 | 1:13 | | | 7. | "You look as though you have lost something" | 5:17 | | | 8. | "Give me my card back!" | 1:03 | | | 9. | "Hello, guv'nor, yes, it's me" | 1:18 | | | 10. | Instrumental 2 | 2:02 | | | 11. | "I've tried to tell you what I think" | 9:57 | | | 12. | Instrumental 3 | 1:27 | | | 13. | "I've spoken to the guv'nor at the gym" | 7:44 | | | 14. | "There you are... and that tree" | 5:30 | | The production received great critical-acclaim with four-star reviews from The Independent, The Times (London) and The Guardian.
'Via this intimate coupling of music and words, by turns witty and nostalgic, Nyman and Hastings reveal themselves to be sentimental old souls, intent on turning Raging Bull into Love Story'.
The Observer
'Andrew Slater is wonderfully believable as the gravelly voiced, slow-witted Patsy, his swagger long beaten out of him, and is perfectly counterpointed by Helen Williams's vulnerable, compassionate Avril. Together they bring the opera to life quite marvellously.'
The Guardian
“…Love Counts… based on Bach chorale harmonisations, truncated, fractured and sometimes superimposed. This provides a strong bass-line, not always found in minimalist composers; but whatever would Bach have made of his sacred material being used as a backcloth to making love and discussions about sex? Helen Williams has exactly the right quality to make Avril's role compassionate and compelling, and Andrew Slater's resonant bass is a good foil...”
GRAMOPHONE, July 2007
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