Michael Nyman: Opera (Love Counts, Man and Boy:Dada)

Graham-Hall, John, McGrath, Paul, Michael Nyman Band, Sheldon, William, Tierney, Vivian

MNRCD 203

This 4-CD box set contains two operas, both in two acts, that are also available separately from MN Records: MNRCD101-2 Man and Boy: Dada and MNRCD111-2 Love Counts. 'Man and Boy: Dada' is the first in a triptych of chamber operas written by Nyman with librettist Michael Hastings. It tells the story of the unlikely friendships between the ageing Dadaist artist Kurt Schwitters, who is exiled in war-torn London; a 12-year-old boy called Michael, who shares the artist's obsession with collecting London Transport bus tickets; and Michael's mother, widowed by the war.
The recording reunites the cast from the UK premiere performance at the Almeida Theatre in July 2004 – tenor John Graham Hall as Schwitters, William Sheldon as the boy, and soprano Vivian Tierney as the boy's mother. Paul McGrath conducts the Michael Nyman Band. '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.
This is a recording of the Almeida Theatre (London) production where it was performed in July 2006 by the Michael Nyman Band, bass baritone Andrew Slater and soprano Helen Williams, with designs by Peter McKintosh and directed by Lindsay Posner.

CD x 4

Michael Nyman Records

14.09.2009

5060211140020