FULL The Dong With A Luminous Nose (Hawkins) & The Journey (Gill) London 2022 Tête à Tête Festival
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: The Dong With A Luminous Nose, The Journey
- Composer: Hawkins John, Jeremy Gill
- Libretto: Edward Lear, Jeremy Gill and Marianna Suri, adapted from a story by Michael Zand Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: The Cockpit, London, UK, Tête à Tête Festival
- Recorded: September 11, 2022
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Aidan Smith, Marianna Suri, Chuma Sijeqa
- Conductor: Jeremy Gill
- Orchestra:
- Chorus: Citizens of the World Choir
- Stage Director: Rosie Kat
- Stage Designer: Fenna de Jonge
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Tête à Tête
- Date Published: 2022
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs, gensubs
- Video Recording from: Vimeo FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
A magical, tragical tale of love and loss told in poetry, music and mime.
The Dong falls in love with a Jumbly Girl from over the sea.
After enchanting times together, she leaves him alone by the shore.
Forever hopeful he waits for her, lit by the lamp he makes of his luminous nose.
Edward Lear is famous for ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’, limericks, quirky drawings and nonsense verse but his humour masked depression and loneliness. As Jenny Uglow says in her biography of Lear ‘… the luminous nose is poetry itself, glimmering in the landscape of a sombre life.’
In this production of The Journey by director Rosie Kat, the Man has been separated from everything he loves. He was forced to leave his home because of violence. His partner and unborn child are hundreds of miles away and he cannot see them because he has been imprisoned in an immigration detention centre, with no knowledge of when he will be released and where he will be sent afterwards. All he can do is write his poetry on the walls, hoping that someone on the outside will see it and begin to doubt the lies that they have been told.
An opera about connection and hope, featuring the Citizens of the World refugee choir, adapted from The Chaplain’s Tale, as told to Michael Zand in Refugee Tales.