The Importance of Being Earnest - an opera by Gerald Barry

Stephen Fry, Fiona Shaw, Thomas Adès and Gerald Barry discuss the upcoming European premiere of Gerald Barry's work based on the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest.

Thursday 26 April 2012 19:30
Barbican Hall
Performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group conducted by Thomas Adès

See barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?I­D=11858 for more information.

• Category

  Music

[Adam Collins]

And Gerald contradicts Fiona a few times :P

[Adam Collins]

Fry never knows when to shut up but I love listening to him.

[Ian Hayles]

Dear me... perhaps it lost something radio. I listened to it on radio three and found myself feeling like the little boy watching the king walk past in the 'altogether'. I got the feeling that Barry was having a huge cynical joke on us... the idea that he was pushing the boundaries by having Lady Bracknell as a man is absurd and would have been thought juvenile in a student production. Watching him in this discussion he has the look of a man that has got away with it and can’t believe his luck.

[petergf1558]

The occasion which was joyous, & only three people walked out after the first scene - some achievement for a modern opera. Setting a well known play to music can be disasterous, (vide Humphrey Searle's Hamlet) & few comic operas, Falstaff and Figaro excepted, sound actually funny. Gerald Barry has proved himself as outrageous - in creativity - as Wilde himself. I look forward to the broadcast & to hearing the words over the orchestra. Thank goodness for the Barbican surtitles.