PROMETHEUS DROWNED | AIRBORNE

Presteigne Festival

United Kingdom
01544 267800
http://www.presteignefestival.com

Nova Music Opera
Richard Williams director | George Vass conductor

Cast includes: Clare McCaldin mezzo-soprano; Christopher Good actor;
Donna Lennard soprano; Henry Manning baritone
Nova Music Ensemble

United by a common theme of misadventure, but distinct enough to engage and excite on many levels, Prometheus Drowned and Airborne make perfect performance partners.

Prometheus Drowned, Stephen McNeff’s reworking of an earlier Presteigne Festival
commission, is a chilling exploration of the strange circumstances surrounding the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1822 at Livorno in Tuscany. Richard Williams has worked the libretto from contemporary sources, using journals, diaries and a number of Shelley’s own writings.

For Airborne, we move forward in history to World War I, where we meet Johnny, a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, and Alice, a nurse in the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. The opera reflects their parallel experiences on 1 July 1916, allowing them to interact and sing and dance together as their minds go back to the high spots of their deepening love affair; both anticipate and then witness the huge debacle that was the Battle of the Somme.

Stephen McNeff : PROMETHEUS DROWNED
Cecilia McDowall : AIRBORNE