Sir Michael Tippett (1905-1998)
New Year, Opera in 3 Acts
Jo Ann, Rhian Lois (soprano)
Pelegrin, Robert Murray (tenor)
Donny, Ross Ramgobin (baritone)
Regan, Rachel Nicholls (soprano)
Nan, Susan Bickley (mezzo)
Merlin, Roland Wood (baritone)
Voice, Alan Oke (tenor)
BBC Singers, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins
rec. 2024, City Halls, Glasgow, UK
Texts supplied
Reviewed as a 16/44.1 flac download
NMC D291 [2 CDs: 113]

Sir Michael Tippett wrote his last opera New Year on commission from the BBC, Glyndebourne and Houston Grand Opera for the princely sum of £100,000. According to the Bank of England’s handy inflation calculator that sum would be worth a Quarter of a Million today. Tippett was 84 when the opera premiered in October 1989 in Texas. Influenced by Jungian philosophy, sci-fi, reggae and TV, the opera is a strange blend of 1980s social breakdown, street slang, dream-sequences and moments of superb invention and luminosity. The main essence of the plot is that Jo Ann, a graduate in child psychology, yearns to help the unfortunates in Terror-Town (the dystopian society in which she lives). She is suffering from her own confidence issues and mental anxieties. The arrival of a visitor from another planet and time named Pelegrin opens a new door for her, bringing love and enlightenment.

Jo Ann lives with her foster brother Donny and Nan, their mother. Pelegrin, who visits from the future is accompanied by Merlin, a computer wizard and the stern Regan, the executive officer of the mission. The final member of the cast is a narrator.

Glyndebourne presented New Year in the Summer of 1990 with Helen Field as Jo Ann and Philip Langridge alternating with Kim Begley in the role of Pelegrin. Andrew Davis conducted the LPO. The following February they reunited in London’s Royal Festival Hall to record the soundtrack to the BBC film of the opera which went out late on BBC2 in September of that year; if you look hard enough, you can find it on the Internet. Glyndebourne Touring Opera took it to its usual venues in late 1990 with a different cast and conducted by the excellent Sian Edwards. The one performance given in Manchester was accompanied by Fidelio and a wonderful Zauberflöte with Barry Banks, Amanda Roocroft and Gerald Finley in the cast. As you might have guessed the house for New Year was not a full one. 

These touring performances were the last anyone heard of New Year until the BBC Scottish SO and Martyn Brabbins came together for a week in Glasgow to make these records and present a live concert. After waiting 34 years for a hearing, three months after these Scottish sessions, the CBSO in Birmingham gave the opera five performances under Alpesh Chauhan for Birmingham Opera Company, in a marquee in the city called The Dream Tent!

As a Tippett enthusiast, I am delighted to have these excellently produced discs of this metaphysical outlier in the opera world. Coming on the back of the recent Gardner CD (review) can we hope for a revival of interest in this composer? I would dearly love another recording of The Mask of Time. 

Tippett uses a large orchestra for New Year, including two electric guitars, three saxophones, exotic percussion and some pretty cool electronic sampling. I believe the original floppy-discs of 1990 were consulted and incorporated into the wizardry of this production. There are some issues in the plot and text concerning Jo Ann’s brother Donny that are unpalatable for us today that should be discussed. Donny is of Afro-Caribbean ancestry and his role as a problem-child and scapegoat contains tropes, pastiche and appropriation that we would not use today. I want to stress that Tippett was a man full of joy, love and tolerance. His interest in African music and world music in general was borne from a desire to create an all-embracing vision that juxtaposes styles and influences; naïve perhaps, but courageous and utopian, I believe.

In her flat, Jo Ann sings her dream-song containing the phrase “children of the terror town” that will become her theme. In the role, Welsh soprano Rhian Lois is sincere and touching. Her brother Donny is sung by baritone Ross Ramgobin whilst Susan Bickley is Nan, as she was 34 years earlier in the GTO performances! When we meet the people from tomorrow, they are trying to go forwards to their future to celebrate New Year. Merlin is having IT issues and a face appears on the screen. It is Jo Ann and Pelegrin is immediately smitten. He is the one who navigates the spaceship back in time rather than forwards to meet and help Jo Ann. Pelegrin is sung heroically by tenor Robert Murray who we may remember as Mark in Gardner’s recent The Midsummer Marriage (review). All this action takes place in Act 1 which ends with Jo Ann and Pelegrin meeting in their dreams. Act 1 lasts 44 minutes.

In Act 2 we are in Terror-Town as they prepare for the New Year festivities. The spaceship lands and there is a scene between Regan and Donny where they clash. Donny is arrogant and provocative. When Regan realises they have travelled backwards to the past she is furious. The travellers from the future leave and Donny is attacked by the crowd, who beat the bad old year away furiously on their chosen scapegoat. Tippett’s music in this act is perhaps his most varied, innovative and non-conventional. The duet between Regan and Donny is based on rap and ska. There is an impressive quartet “No way” for Jo Ann, Pellegrin, Regan and Nan and the act ends with “Auld lang syne” as the bells strikes midnight. Regan shines in this act and is sung by Rachel Nicholls, who was Jenifer in the aforementioned Midsummer Marriage. The massive quartet (CD1 Track 20: 04:15) does put pressure on the voices but our soloists ride over the huge orchestra very nicely. Kudos to those BBC Scottish horn players here too: some very stylish playing. Act 2 is 29 minutes in duration.

The final act of New Year is my favourite. It opens like the other acts with the narrator who is sung in this recording by veteran tenor Alan Oke, who was 70 at the time of recording and sounds fantastic. Donny leaves for good (we know not where; it feels as if he is being sent away as the family cannot cope anymore with the constant drama and crises he brings). He leaves, handing Jo Ann a video cassette of his dreams to remember him by. The central part of this finale to New Year is the marvellous extended scene between Jo Ann and Pelegrin in an unworldly outdoor sacred spot. Pelegrin shows Jo Ann a spring and a lake. She must choose which source to drink from. One is the easy option where she will forget all her cares, the other will quench her thirst but bring the realities of her responsibilities back to her. She chooses to face life and conquer her fears, thus proving herself strong and equipped to help build a better world in her present, fortified by this taste of future bliss. In these trials there is a wonderful oboe solo line and opportunities for the three sax players to shine. The players do credit to the score.

Jo Ann and Pelegrin declare their love. The duet starts with “Moments out of time and space” (CD2 Track 7: 08:08). They dance a “paradise dance”, a beautiful flute led sarabande which is lifted from The Mask of Time written six years earlier. Pelegrin takes Jo Ann home and leaves her with a parting rose. The music in these last two scenes is vintage Tippett. I would urge all lovers of the composer to investigate. Act 3 lasts 39 minutes in this recording.

Martyn Brabbins’ Hyperion series of Tippett symphonies (review ~ review) was stunning and a worthy successor to the Hickox records. Here in this first recording of New Year, he has delivered another document to enhance the legacy of the great man. The notes in this issue contain one of the best essays of its type I have ever read. Oliver Soden’s programme notes, as he calls them, are a paragon of excellence and I am in awe of his insight and intellect. They certainly helped me get to grips with and, after a week with the piece, to love this work. NMC’s production and engineering, led by Andrew Keener is uniformly excellent. The recording deserves to be a great success.

Philip Harrison 

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