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Gerald Barry:
The Importance of Being Earnest

Barbara Hannigan soprano Cecily Cardew ~ Peter Tantsits tenor Jack Worthing
Joshua Bloom baritone Algernon Moncrieff ~ Katalin Károlyi mezzo-soprano Gwendolen Fairfax
Hilary Summers contralto Miss Prism ~ Alan Ewing bass Lady Bracknell
Benjamin Bevan bass Lane/Merriman ~ Joshua Hart speaker Dr Chasuble
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group ~ Thomas Adès conductor

NMC D197

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• Celebrating 25 years of NMC Recordings.
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Gerald Barry's riotous opera brings out the savagery beneath the genteel Edwardian manners of Wilde's play: its score includes gunshots, whistling and speaking from the orchestral players, marching boots, and the smashing of 40 dinner plates, while its characters - among them Lady Bracknell sung by bass Alan Ewing - shout through gales, quote Schiller's Ode to Joy (in German) and make polite conversation through megaphones.
      Act I.
  1. Auld Lang Syne     1'15"
  2. Algernon: ‘Did you hear what I was playing?’     4'36"
  3. Lane: ‘Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax’     3'29"
  4. Lady Bracknell: ‘Freude, schöner Götterfunken’     1'15"
  5. Jack: ‘Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you’     2'56"
  6. Lady Bracknell: ‘Mister Worthing!’     1'58"
  7. Lady Bracknell: ‘I feel bound to tell you’     2'05"
  8. Lady Bracknell: ‘Are your parents living?’     2'10"
  9. Jack: ‘What should I do?’ (i)     1'24"
10. Jack: ‘What should I do?’ (ii)     1'26"
11. Jack: ‘Will you stop!!’     2'42"

      Act II.
12. Garden at the Manor House     3'31"
13. Cecily: ‘I wish Uncle Jack would allow’     0'19"
14. Miss Prism: ‘Freude, schöner Götterfunken’     3'18"
15. Algernon: ‘You are my little cousin Cecily’     1'08"
16. Miss Prism: ‘Mister Worthing!’     2'44"
17. Algernon: ‘He's going to send me away’     1'08"
18. Algernon: ‘Cecily, ever since I looked’     2'00"
19. Cecily: ‘You must not laugh at me’     2'51"
20. Merriman: ‘Miss Fairfax’     3'32"
21. Orchestral Interlude     1'12"
22. Gwendolen: ‘I had no idea’     3'49"
23. Jack: ‘And this is what you call Bunburying!?’     2'31"

      Act III.
24. Orchestral Introduction     2'34"
25. Gwendolen / Cecily: ‘Your Christian names’     0'51"
26. Merriman: ‘Lady Bracknell’     2'49"
27. Lady Bracknell: ‘Mister Worthing, is Miss Cardew’     2'32"
28. Lady Bracknell: ‘Pretty child!’     2'09"
29. Jack: ‘I am Miss Cardew's guardian’     1'42"
30. Lady Bracknell: ‘Miss Prism!’     1'21"
31. Lady Bracknell: ‘Twenty-eight years ago’     1'10"
32. Miss Prism: ‘Lady Bracknell’     1'26"
33. Jack: ‘But where did you deposit the handbag?’     1'08"
34. Chasuble: ‘What do you think this means’     1'49"
35. Jack: ‘Is this the handbag?’     2'18"
36. Jack: ‘Lady Bracknell, who am I?’     1'48"
37. All: ‘Explosion!’     2'33"


NMC Recordings are distributed in Australia by
Rockian Trading, P.O.Box 44, Briar Hill, Vic, 3088, Australia
Telephone (03) 9432 4149 ~ Facsimile (03) 9444 6879