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City of London Festival's Brilliant Moves
While I was in London last week, I had a fascinating conversation with Ian Ritchie, the Festival Director of the City of London Festival, about this summer's program.
This year’s Festival, which runs from 25 June to 12 July, will celebrate the 200th anniversary of Britain’s Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. Ritchie told me about an extraordinary set of projects that the Festival has undertaken; one of the most interesting is described below:
As a centerpiece of the 2007 Festival they have commissioned and are producing a new opera, Bridgetower — a fable of London in 1807, written by Mike Phillips, composed by Julian Joseph, and directed by Helen Eastman in collaboration with the English Touring Opera. The work is being created in the medium of jazz (à la Gershwin Porgy and Bess), and, although based on historical events and attitudes of 200 years ago, its subtext is a reflection of black people’s place in today’s cultural and social establishment. The London première performances will take place in LSO St Luke’s during the first week of July ( 5th – 7th ) and hopefully the opera will tour to Bristol and elsewhere.
The Bridgetower opera is based on the story of George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower, the son of a former slave of Abyssinian heritage who escaped to Europe from the Caribbean, where he had worked for a Dutch owner. Bridgetower senior married a Polish woman, found employment in the Esterhazy court, and persuaded the resident Kapellmeister, Joseph Haydn, to teach music to his gifted son. George Bridgetower traveled to Paris with his father in 1789 an gave three concerts as a 10-year old violin prodigy in the famous Concerts Spirituels series before the French Revolution changed everything and the pair moved on to London. This is the point at which the opera opens, with George Bridgetower's first appearance at the court in Windsor to play in front of George III, and his adoption by the Prince Regent.
The story includes episodes such as his friendship with Beethoven – Bridgetower was the original dedicatee of the Kreutzer Sonata and they gave the first performance together – and concludes in London in 1807, when the first legislation to end the transatlantic slave trade was passed through Parliament. Bridgetower’s life offers a powerful symbolism for the creation and establishment of a black British community which has its roots in the 18 th century importation and migration of slaves and ex-slaves. It also opens a historical window into the shaping of contemporary London. Bridgetower is an ordinary man, whose talent and compassion makes him a hero, as he interacts with the different layers of society in London.
Posted on March 28, 2007 10:52 AM | Permalink
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