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FULL THE SLEEPER (Stephen Deazley) Cardiff 2011 Welsh National Youth Opera
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: The Sleeper
- Composer: Deazley Stephen
- Libretto: Michael Symmons Roberts Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Coal Exchange Building, Cardiff Bay, Wales, Welsh National Youth Opera
- Recorded: August 13, 2011
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: David Jones, Annie Sheen, Holly-Anna Lloyd, Emily Griffiths, Michael Lowe, Tim Nelson, William Helliwell, Debra Finch
- Conductor: Eugene Montieth
- Orchestra:
- Stage Director: Pete Harris
- Stage Designer: Rhys Jarman
- Costume Designer:
- Lighting Designer: Rachel McCutcheon
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Tête à Tête
- Date Published: 2011
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
In The Sleeper, we see our own society as it is today, but with one familiar element removed. This is a Britain in which, decades ago, people lost the gift of sleep.
Society is strained to breaking point by 24-hour wakefulness. The government has cracked down on subversive images of sleep. People work around the clock. Hotels are for private meetings and illicit romance. Shops never close.
Into this paranoid world, a teenager who can sleep. Protected by friends, the sleeper goes on the run from the authorities who are keen to control and study their gift.
The group ends up living in a city centre squat, surviving by shoplifting and begging. The group grows increasingly anxious and fractious, with some members lapsing into cultish beliefs in the ‘old gods’, in which lullabies are chanted as prayers, worshipping sleep. Jamie, the level-headed natural leader of the group, is struggling to keep the peace.
One night a police patrol raids the squat. Hungry, scared and sick of being pursued, the group receives an offer of help from a wealthy man – known by the nickname Hypnos – who says he will protect them. But what does he want in return? Desperate, and running out of options, they go to him. When they reach the man’s hideout they find a place governed by his obsession with sleep and an eerie film-set centered around a bed. The price for his protection is a movie. He wants to film the ‘sleeper’ sleeping. But why?