Description
Picture a day like this is the fourth collaboration between George Benjamin and Martin Crimp, whose acclaimed partnership produced Written on Skin, Lessons in Love and Violence, and Into the Little Hill. The opera a kind of Alice in Wonderland, but for adults, says Crimp lasts just over an hour and is cast in seven scenes. It is scored for five voices (S-S-MS-CT-Bar) and twenty-two instrumentalists. It premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2023, conducted by the composer.
Picture a day like this is a bittersweet fable of grief and renewal. Benjamin and Crimp tell the story of a Woman who has lost her child: if, before nightfall, she meets one truly happy person and cuts a button from their sleeve, her child will live again. In her search she meets a pair of lovers, a Composer and their Assistant, an Artisan, Collector, and, in a beautiful garden, the mysterious Zabelle.
a beautifully written triumphBenjamin's music conjures
