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Owen Wingrave

Benjamin Britten
9 – 16 September 2017

As pertinent now as then, OWEN WINGRAVE was composed by Benjamin Britten at the height of the Vietnam War. The opera poses the question: Is pacifism an act of cowardice? Or rather a desire to escape from the spiral of war and create world peace? To what extent do we determine our own futures? Should we let past events inform the decisions we make? Britten’s characters grapple with timeless issues in this gripping psychodrama.

Synopsis

An opera in two acts.
Libretto by Myfanwy Piper based on a short story by Henry James.

At Coyle’s cramming establishment in London, Owen and his friend Lechmere are learning the strategy of battle. At the end of the lesson, Owen declares that he cannot go through with a military career. Coyle is angry but agrees to break the news to the Wingrave family for whom soldiering has been a way of life for decades. At their haunted country house, Paramore, Owen is rounded on by his aunt Miss Wingrave, his fiancée Kate Julian and her mother. The elderly head of the family, Sir Philip Wingrave, who fought at Bhurtpore, is similarly outraged. In the Prologue to Act Two, a ballad singer narrates the tale of the young Wingrave boy killed by his brutal father for refusing to fight over an argument with a friend. Sir Philip disowns Owen, depriving him of his inheritance. Kate humiliates Owen by flirting with Lechmere. After everyone has gone to bed, Owen, left alone, reflects on his predicament and reaffirms his passionate belief in peace. Kate comes looking for him. She taunts him with cowardice and dares him to sleep in the haunted room…

Dates & Venues

→ 9 September 2017 – Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick

→ 13 September 2017 – The Everyman, Cork

→ 15 September 2017 – O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin

→ 16 September 2017 – O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin

Press

“One needs hardly emphasise how many threads from the deepest of Britten’s preoccupations, formulated in wholly characteristic dramatic and musical images, are drawn together as the opera moves to its ironic close. These are major preoccupations and this is a major theatrical work, in which they are again pressed home with consummate art.”
Donald Mitchell writing in The Listener

Programme download

Programme download

Creative Team

Conductor Stephen Barlow
Director Tom Creed
Set & lighting Aedín Cosgrove
Costumes Catherine Fay
Video Jules van Hulst
Video Wieger Steenhuis
Dramaturgy Eoghan Carrick

Cast

Owen Wingrave Benjamin Russell
Spencer Coyle Christopher Cull
Lechmere Peter O’Reilly
Miss Wingrave Roisín Walsh
Mrs Coyle Rachel Croash
Mrs Julian Amy Ní Fhearraigh
Kate Sarah Richmond
Sir Philip/Narrator Andrew Boushell

Collaborating with

In association with the Académie de l’Opéra national de Paris & the ICO.
Reduced orchestration prepared by David Matthews.
Performances by arrangement with Faber Music Ltd, London.
Supported by the French Embassy in Ireland https://ie.ambafrance.org

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