The Silver Tassie (opera)

The Silver Tassie is an opera in four acts by the English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage. The English libretto was written by Amanda Holden based on the 1927/28 play of the same name by Seán O'Casey. The opera was composed between 1997 and 1999.

Background

The Silver Tassie was commissioned by English National Opera (ENO) while Turnage was their Composer in Association and benefited from being worked on at the ENO Studio. It was part funded by Dallas Opera.

In an interview for the programme for the ENO production, Turnage talks about treating the four acts as the movements of a symphony with a dance finale. He also discusses how the studio workshops helped him thin out the orchestral textures to make the voices clearer. Although the libretto leaves things vague, Turnage makes it clear that he had a Dublin setting in mind with references in the last act to an Irish jig as one of the dance movements and the use of fiddles in the off-stage band. Turnage includes references to dance and other music contemporary to the setting in his score. In particular, he quotes the Robert Burns folk-song from which the opera gets its name.

Performance and recording history

The Silver Tassie was first performed on 16 February 2000 by ENO at the London Coliseum.. The opera won both the South Bank Show Award and Olivier Awards for its original ENO run.See article at...
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