Raising Icarus

Raising Icarus with The Barber Institute 

28, 29, 30 April 2022

Birmingham REP

Tickets

BCMG NEXT Concert

 

Directed and designed by an internationally renowned team, and conducted by Natalie Murray Beale, this April Birmingham Contemporary Music Group are performing as part of the new Barber Opera, RAISING ICARUS.

This raw and powerful new chamber opera by Michael Zev Gordon breaks open an ancient myth to reveal its contemporary, psychological heart - how parental expectation and aspiration risk doing harm to our children.

The Icarus myth foreshadows modern parental preoccupations, and yet, until now, focus on the myth has remained rather simplistically on the image of ‘flying too close to the sun’. This much-anticipated opera from Michael Zev Gordon and Stephen Plaice explores the more profound psychology of the Icarus myth that has been overlooked in other tellings.

Enter a mesmeric world of curious mechanical devices, dark labyrinths, and ingenious workshops where increasingly dysfunctional relationships eventually bring tragedy.

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NEXT musicians will perform a selection of Michael Zev Gordon’s chamber works before Raising Icarus on 28 April, including works Sensucht, Seize the Day, A Small Folly, and Fragments from a Diary. Join us in this short, late afternoon recital at the CBSO Centre, just a 5-minute walk from Birmingham Repertory Theatre where the opera will be performed.