Now
“Safe, they told us: to keep us safe.
Protected, like children. Like children.
I brought my child into this city
and I thought my child was safe.”
Now (2014)
A dystopian chamber opera in one act | 15 minutes
Composed by Lewis Murphy
2 Sopranos, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, Baritone, Chamber Orchestra
(1.1d1.1d1.alto sax-2perc-hp-pno-str)
Commissioned by Royal College of Music and Tête-à- Tête Festival as part of Hogarth’s Stages
Premiere: London, May 2014
Five characters in a not-so-distant dystopian future…
find themselves trapped in their office building after the government puts the city on lockdown, fearing revolution. From the intern to the boss, each of the characters must find one another and work out together what to do next, wondering what the state of the world is outside.
Watch the opera
A film of the premiere’s dress rehearsal can be enjoyed in full below, as performed by students of the Royal College of Music.
“Lewis Murphy’s Now, with a libretto by Laura Attridge, was the most musically distinctive opera. It was also the piece that drifted furthest from the eighteenth-century world of Hogarth, and was more akin to H. G. Wells or George Orwell. The piece takes place in a dystopian city in which characters in stark black-and-electric-blue costumes hid in corners, whispering about revolution. In the use of bells and the eeriness of the score, the opera recalls James MacMillan and the Royal College of Music’s most lauded student, Benjamin Britten.”
- Classical Source
“Lewis Murphy’s music seemed well-developed and articulate; beautiful swelling sounds from piano and strings, shot through with sparkling bells.”
— Bachtrack
Photo: Fiona Clarke