DAUGHTERS OF BRITANNIA

This cycle, written expressly for German soprano Diana Damrau depicts five heroines of British history and mythology, namely Boudicca, Maid Marian, Morgause, Guinevere and Lady Godiva. As a gifted actress with natural dramatic timing and crystal-clear diction, Diana Damrau is beautifully equipped to meet the challenge of portraying the diversity each of Britannia’s Daughters.

SONS OF BRITANNIA

Twinned with the Daughters of Britannia cycle, this piece originally written for British baritone Christopher Maltman depicts five heroes of British history and mythology, namely King John, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Merlin and Alfred the Great.

THE UNDYING SPLENDOUR

The brutality of the First World War inspired some of the most vivid accounts of the battlefield to date, making poets of many of the young men who had enlisted to fight. Their words became windows through which subsequent generations peered, bearing witness to the horrors of trench-warfare. Many of these men were immortalised; their poems exalted.

There are those though no less deserving, whose names have been blurred from common remembrance. Sergeant John William Streets from Whitwell, Derbyshire served with the 12th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment. He died on the Somme on 1st May 1916 while going to the aid of a fellow wounded soldier. He was 31. His anthology of war poetry ‘Their Undying Splendour’ was published posthumously.

These poems depict the internal journey of a soldier, firstly fresh-faced as he meditates on the presence of a lark carolling above the trenches, he is then all too soon aware of the carnage about him as countless comrades are laid to rest. In the third and final poem, war-weary yet more philosophical in mood, he ponders on the place that he and the fallen will have in history.

DAY TURNED INTO NIGHT

Queen Victoria is considered a woman of extremes; a caricature painted in large, grand strokes, habitually depicted as the grieving widow dressed top-to-toe in black, save her white veil.

Her sorrow is seldom contextualised, yet it is a sorrow that could have only been borne out of an intense, all-consuming love. This cycle seeks to contextualise her grief, setting her own awe-strikingly honest, poignant words extracted from her letters and diaries concerning her beloved Albert. They span from the time of their first meeting, through to their honeymoon night, to Albert's subsequent illness, death and its woefully tragic aftermath.

Following its world premiere at the Munich Opera Festival, this cycle has been heard at Wigmore Hall and the Alte Oper Frankfurt.