Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Stephen Oliver
Tom Jones (1975)
- Novello & Co Ltd (World)
Commissioned by The Gulbenkian Foundation
- 1+pic.1+ca.2+bcl.1+cbsn/1110/2perc/hpschd.cel.pf/str(2.1.1.2.1)
- SATB
- 14 principal singers (2 doubling)
- 2 hr
- Stephen Oliver, after the novel by Henry Fielding
- English
Programme Note
BRIEF PROGRAMME NOTE
Firmly structured on three great arches, the opera’s action is framed by Somerset with the journey to London itself forming the central section. The outer arches span considerable lengths of time, the inner a matter of a day and night: and our viewpoint constantly shifts from a rapid scudding through time – the longest single jump is fourteen years – to minutely detailed descriptions of single scenes. The plot presents a likeable young man, gives him a beautiful high-spirited lover with a rascally old soak of a father, a wicked younger brother, a heavy uncle and a comic aunt.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS
In Oliver’s adaptation of Fielding’s comic novel, the action opens in the Courts of Heaven, where Jove and Juno are berating the gods for the lack of respect for virtue shown by human kind. To prove or disprove the point, they create a peerless maid (Sophie) and out her on earth to test the virtue of the unfortunate but ultimately loveable rake, Tom Jones. The gods themselves then take principal parts in this tale of lust, envy and hypocrisy, and Tom’s tests take on the aspect of a divine trial of the quality of human nature. As he pursues his beloved Sophie through the country houses of Somerset and the streets and taverns of London, he is beset by a series of hilarious trials and farcical misfortunes, but ultimately finds his true love (with the help of a little divine intervention).
Firmly structured on three great arches, the opera’s action is framed by Somerset with the journey to London itself forming the central section. The outer arches span considerable lengths of time, the inner a matter of a day and night: and our viewpoint constantly shifts from a rapid scudding through time – the longest single jump is fourteen years – to minutely detailed descriptions of single scenes. The plot presents a likeable young man, gives him a beautiful high-spirited lover with a rascally old soak of a father, a wicked younger brother, a heavy uncle and a comic aunt.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS
In Oliver’s adaptation of Fielding’s comic novel, the action opens in the Courts of Heaven, where Jove and Juno are berating the gods for the lack of respect for virtue shown by human kind. To prove or disprove the point, they create a peerless maid (Sophie) and out her on earth to test the virtue of the unfortunate but ultimately loveable rake, Tom Jones. The gods themselves then take principal parts in this tale of lust, envy and hypocrisy, and Tom’s tests take on the aspect of a divine trial of the quality of human nature. As he pursues his beloved Sophie through the country houses of Somerset and the streets and taverns of London, he is beset by a series of hilarious trials and farcical misfortunes, but ultimately finds his true love (with the help of a little divine intervention).