Nyman: Facing Goya (complete opera)
$80.00
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MICHAEL NYMAN
Nyman: Facing Goya (complete opera)
Winnie Bowe, Marie Angel, Hilary Summers, Harry Nicoll / Michael Nyman Band, Michael Nyman
[ Michael Nyman / 3 CD ]
Release Date: Tuesday 26 April 2011
This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.
Facing Goya is a taut thriller that follows one woman's passionate search for the 18th Century Spanish artist Goya's missing skull. Her journey takes us into the dangerous world of racial stereotyping, gene therapy, cloning and humankind's follies as seen through Goya's paintings, etchings and captions. The idea for the opera arose from Michael Nyman's fascination with the insidious study of craniometry that developed in the 1870s.
Goya was regarded as one of the greatest painters of his time. Buried in Bordeaux, legend has it that he asked friends to ensure his head was removed prior to burial to prevent the early craniometrists and researchers of eugenics from getting hold of his brain.
Box Set includes Full Libretto and extensive booklet notes.
Contains FREE BONUS CD of highlights of Michael Nyman's two previously released operas on MN Records.
"A collage-like 'opera in four acts' investigating the physiology of genius, set to Nyman's usual chugging grooves, smartly packaged on his own label." (BBC Music)
"It's a work of many incidental pleasures - the insidiously catchy "Leonardo says" aria in Act I, or the resuscitated Goya asking the scientists why he couldn't have been left in peace in the third act...Nyman's own chamber ensemble provides punchy, incisive backing under the composer's direction in a reissue of a recording dating from 2003." (The Arts Desk)
"the opera's success lies in the manner in which the composer weaves a number of memorable musical themes around the central character of the Art Banker. Nyman's trademark propulsive rhythmic bass-lines pepper the score from time to time...Facing Goya is a fascinating example of post-opera at the turn of the 21st century." (Gramophone)
