The Ice Break: Tippett's opera unfrozen by Birmingham Opera Company
16 April 2015
The ever-inventive Birmingham Opera Company presented Michael Tippett’s opera The Ice Break in a disused warehouse in Digbeth, Birmingham, over the Easter period. The B12 Warehouse stood in for a vast airport lounge, riot-torn streets and a hospital in this rarely heard work. Attitudes to race, rebellion, censorship, conflict, suppression and community are all questioned - "a very potent thing to sing about in this city".
Birmingham Opera Company ('not what you expect from opera') integrates amateurs from local arts and social organisations with professional musicians, lending a collaborative energy to performances.
Michael Tippett, who died in 1998 aged 93, was acclaimed in his own lifetime as one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century although his music often divides opinion.
Tippett’s highly personal theatrical world and vital, visceral, achingly beautiful music have brought new life to this ever more diverse company… but only after our most intense and challenging rehearsal period yetGraham Vick, director
Tippett started to gain a national reputation in the 1940s with his pacifist oratorio A Child of our Time, a work inspired by the events of Kristallnacht.
Tippett's fourth opera, written when in his 70s, also centres on an act of intolerance leading to mass conflict and brutality. The Ice Break premiered at Covent Garden in July 1977 in a Sam Wanamaker production and has since been neglected.
The work is a challenge for both performers and audiences. Birmingham Opera's artistic director Graham Vick describes it: "the breaking ice is our family relationships, our cities, our cultures, our gods, our selves. Tippett’s highly personal theatrical world and vital, visceral, achingly beautiful music have brought new life to this ever more diverse company… but only after our most intense and challenging rehearsal period yet."
Of BOC's commitment to its locality, Vick says, "By making local people the focus of what we do, not only do we offer the opportunity to engage with opera at first hand but also, in return, have the chance for our productions to be enriched by a wealth of human experience. Our choice of work, preparation and presentation are governed entirely by this commitment."
Enjoy a highlight from this acclaimed production below, as well as insight from rehearsals on the unique way the company features local amateurs alongside professional soloists and orchestra.
The critical reaction
I’m just going to say it: The Ice Break is a masterpiece and this production strikes me as the greatest thing that Birmingham Opera Company has yet done.
Birmingham Post, 5 April 2015, by Richard Bratby
Frozen up since its première in the late Seventies, Michael Tippett’s fourth opera has been withdrawn from cold storage, thawed and re-heated in a remarkable production by the director Graham Vick and his Birmingham Opera Company.
The score of The Ice Break emerges as nothing short of magnificent – 75 minutes of incandescent late romanticism, scored with a lush sensuality which embraces the sonorities of electric guitars and a vast percussion section.
Daily Telegraph, 4 April 2015, by Rupert Christiansen
What’s hard to escape is the sheer visceral dramatic and musical excitement of the opera, its whirling, unstoppable, inexorable momentum... It is hard to imagine later 20th-century operas – particularly the riot scene in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek – without The Ice Break.
The Guardian, 3 April 2015, by Oliver Soden
Performance Photo Gallery
Performance
The Ice Break | Act 1 | Extract
Entrance and aria of Olympion
Olympion
The Ice Break opens in an airport. This extract features the arrival of Olympion, the new champion of the world, who celebrates his blackness to the delight of his adoring fans.
Olympion is played by T’au Pupu’a, an ex-professional American football player, making his UK opera debut in Graham Vick’s new production. Also featured are Stephanie Corley as Gayle, Ross Ramgobin as Yuri, Gayle's boyfriend, and Chrystal E Williams as Hannah.
The chorus and actors are drawn from the Birmingham local community and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Andrew Gourlay.
Director, Graham Vick | Designer, Stuart Nunn | Movement, Ron Howell | Lighting, Giuseppe Di Iorio | Chorus Master, Jonathan Laird.
Rehearsals
Midlands Today at The Ice Break rehearsals
Satnam Rana reports from the Birmingham Opera Company's rehearsals
Performers from local community groups, who are part of the chorus in the production, talk to Satnam Rana about taking part in a show which tackles race, riots and rebellion in a modern world.
Satnam also hears from Birmingham Opera Company artistic director Graham Vick about the The Ice Break's resonance for modern audiences.
Graham Vick
In this opera the tension is not just between generations, but between first and second generation immigrant… this opera addresses that front-on, and it’s a very potent thing to sing about in this city
Performer & Audience Reaction
The Ice Break - Reaction
Chorus performers and audience members give their reaction to the opera
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Tippett
British composer Sir Michael Tippett's life and works are explored by Donald Macleod.
