A musical setting of Eugene O'Neill 's domestic tragedy
' Before Breakfast'
Music by Erik Chisholm
Royal Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra
(Leader, David McCallum )
Winifred Davey and James Moody
(piano duet)
CONDUCTED BY THE COMPOSER
As conductor and composer, Erik Chisholm hasalways been interested in opera. Now principal of the Music Department of Cape Town University, he recently took a smalll company of his senior opera students on an extensive tour of South' Africa One of their most popular operas was Menotti's masterpiece The Medium, with Noreen Berry , an unknown s:nger of twenty-three, scoring an outstand ng success in the role made famous by Marie Powers. To make a double bill with this, Chasholm composed a grim !inrle opera based on Eugene O'Neill 's ' domestic tragedy,' which he retitled Dark Sonnet. One character, Mrs. Rowland, alone appears on the stage. She is the w:fe of a poetic but characterless idler whose apathy and unfaithfulness turn her into a diunken harrid-an; from her sordid kitchen she reproaches and reviles her husband ceaselessly until, driven distracted by her nagging, he cuts his throat as he shaves.
The composer makes use of rhe twelve-note system, which Berg's Wozzeck showed to be very apt for grimly poignant subjects. Dark Sonnet, previously broadcast yesterday in the Third Programme, is to be televised on February 2.
Kenneth Wright