Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Albarn discusses new opera

By | Published on Wednesday 8 June 2011

Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn popped into ‘The Today Programme’ on Radio 4 yesterday morning to discuss his new opera, ‘Dr Dee: An English Opera’, which he will be premiering next month as part of the Manchester International Festival. The show tells the story of the life of sixteenth century scientist John Dee and has been created with theatre director Rufus Norris.

Dee was a political adviser, a mathematician and scientist, as well as a magician and mystic. Norris explained: “He was one of the last great free thinkers, because science and magic had yet to part company. [But] the man who at the time knew more than anyone else, certainly in Britain, managed to mess up the things closest at home”.

Albarn explained his attraction to the story, saying: “I’ve got a really strange emotional connection – it really gets to me, that haunted, magical England. It’s something that really stirs me in an irrational way. It’s just amazing how much colour there is in his ideas. Just imagine the English now if we had kept that spirit in our hearts”.

For more information on the show, head over to www.mif.co.uk.



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