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The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit
Vocal score on hire
978-0-19-335298-8
15 October 1996
Price: Available on request
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An opera in 2 acts Forces or CategoryOperaDuration60 minutesDifficultyDifficultOrchestrationfl (+picc&afl), ob (+ca), 2 cl (II+ bcl), bn (+cbn), hn, tpt, btbn, mba, pn, 2 vln, vla, vc, dbProgramme NotesMusic - Gerald Barry
Text - Meredith Oakes
The Triumph of Beauty and
Deceit was written in 1991 and has been staged in Aldeburgh, London and The Berliner Festwochen. It was given its American premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2006, and performances in Amsterdam and New York took place in 2007 and 2008.
The opera is a battle between Pleasure and Time, with Beauty as the prize.
Deceit sides with Pleasure and Truth with Time.
Pleasure wins.
Ageing, fear, vanity and pleasure are some of its concerns, the endless hunting for someone to say:
"You are my delight, my comfort at night,
And I'll roll you nine times before morning."
It is the obsessiveness of the soldier in the 11th century text by Giraldus Cambrensis, The Conquest of Ireland:
He was addicted to venery from his
youth, and considered lawful any act which others wished to perform upon him, or he wished to perform upon others, involving lust in all its forms.
These found texts are placed throughout the work and act as extremes of temperature, whooshing the music from one moment to the next.
Pleasure's song to Beauty "You are my delight" is a setting out of wares in his war with Time for Beauty. Time's crushing response is James Clarence Mangan's poem "What is Love."
Mangan, an extremophile, is damned if anything is going to light this scene. He is devoted, annihilatingly, to the "sadness, desolation, devastation, spoliation and uprooting" of love.
"What is Love? I asked a lover -
Liken it, he answered, weeping,
To a flood unchained and
sweeping
Over shell-strewn grottos, Over Beds of roses, lilies, tulips,
O'er all flowers that most enrich the
Garden, in one headlong torrent,
Till they show a wreck from which the
Eye and mind recoil abhorrent."
Quite different from the 19th century Handel translation depicting Pleasure's court: "Balls by night and manly sports by day."
Images of flight from time litter the text. And desire for its destruction. Here,virtuosity, magically, is offered as a means of suspending time, keeping one safe from it. It's as if protection from its ravages is the reward for the music and singing being brilliant enough. Virtuosity, magically, would create a suspension, and keep one safe.
Vocal brilliance, therefore, sometimes
enfolds the text. The text becomes abstract, foreign, perspective with a single viewpoint momentarily abandoned.
The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit. The passing of time, horrible.
Vanity/yearning, as little as possible. Ecstasy, yes.
To manage as many delicious moments as one can. Now.
Flaubert said that things have to enter into us enough to make us cry out.
Handel says to taste is crucial.
© Gerald Barry
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
Synopsis
Act I
Beauty longs for immortality and is offered it by Pleasure. Time and Truth remind Beauty that it is the nature of time to pass and all else is folly. Deceit tells Beauty that flight will conquer time. Pleasure and Time each try to win
Beauty by a display of power. Pleasure speaks of the delights of love and the wonders of the world, Time of the desolation and devastation of love. Deceit presses Pleasure's case; Beauty resists and Deceit collapses.
Act II
Beauty believes Deceit destroyed, but Truth exposes his trickery. Truth offers Beauty an objective view but Beauty hesitates. All vie for Beauty. He flees. He is alone with Pleasure and Pleasure sleeps. Time and Truth show Beauty his decay but this image is shattered by Deceit. Time and Truth withdraw and Pleasure wakes.
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Gerald Barry (b.1952) Gerald Barry was born in Ireland in 1952 and studied composition with Stockhausen and Kagel. He first came to public attention in 1979 with his radical ensemble works __________ and 'Ø.
Barry's music has been performed at the Warsaw Autumn, Musik Triennale Köln, Musica Viva, Festival Présences, Huddersfield and St Denis Festivals, the ISCM and many others. His music has been recorded on the NMC, Largo, Black Box, Marco Polo and Challenge labels.More on Gerald Barry from The Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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