B. Priestley, first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 29 September 1949, conducted by Karl Rankl in a production by Peter Brook.
[1] After the initial run the next performance was in concert on 21 February 1972 at the Royal Festival Hall, London, conducted by Bryan Fairfax, which was also broadcast by BBC radio.
Towards the end of the Second World War, Priestley again met Bliss, who said he was ready to write an opera, and asked the author for suggestions.
Time: 1836, at midsummer Setting: Berasson, a small town in the south of France A large room at the Golden Duck tavernAfter bustle of travellers departing, Madame Bardeau is seen entertaining the curé.
Lavatte enters and announces that he is giving a party that night to mark the engagement of his daughter Madeleine to a local nobleman (who it turns out is too old to become her husband).
The curé suggests that Lavatte gets the players to entertain his guests that night – they will come cheap if he agrees to allow Madame Bardeau to have more time to pay her debt.
Guests emerge from the house and hear Diana sing of the joy of the hunt, then leading some off with her voice dying away in the distance.
It is midnight and a group of male guests and Mars come onto the terrace and sing of war before they too go off; Lavatte is angry with the antics of the gods.
Lavatte agrees, and as the sun rises, guests and servants come on the scene and sing a bridal chorus for Madeleine - as the players start again on their travels.