The first performance was at Lincoln Center, New York City on April 20, 1972,[1] by the music department of the Juilliard School with John Houseman as stage director,[2] Gerhard Samuel as the conductor and Alvin Ailey as the choreographer.
A performance of a revised version, by the composer, took place in 1985 with the New York Opera Repertory Theater.
[5] The premiere production received mixed reviews,[6] with one particularly negative from Harold C. Schonberg, including this description: ...a very bland score, distressingly banal (all those waltzes!)
In the nave of Westminster Abbey, Lord Byron's friends, wife and sister have arrived to present a statue of Lord Byron to the Dean of the Abbey, and to lobby for the poet's burial there.
In addition, excerpts from the opera, called "Five Tenor Songs from Lord Byron", have been recorded, with the following artists: Martyn Hill, tenor; Budapest Symphony Orchestra; James Bolle, conductor.