Peter Maxwell Davies: Towards an Opera

Extract

Peter Maxwell Davies has now reached an important turning-point in his career: like more than one other young British composer he is working on an opera. He has been contemplating this for at least seven years, but until recently he has hesitated to start work on it because he felt that his style was not yet suitable. He felt that he should wait until he had achieved a sufficiently ‘theatrical’ musical language—“just imagine an opera like St. Michael!” he is said to have exclaimed once, when criticising Nono for basing part of Intolleranza 1960 too closely on the style of II Canto Sospeso. Few would doubt the wisdom of his decision. An opera in the manner of St. Michael or Prolation would have been an alarming prospect.